One day, however, as Greif grew no better, Rex determined
to startle the good man, by ascertaining what he knew. In order to lead
the conversation he threw out a careless remark about an unsettled
question which he knew to be agitating the scientific world, and
concerning which it was certain that the great doctor would have a firm
opinion of his own. To the astonishment of the latter, Rex disputed the
point, at first as though he cared little, but gradually and with
matchless skill disclosing to his adversary a completeness of
information and a keenness of judgment which fairly took away his
breath.
'You almost convince me,' said the physician, who had quite forgotten
to help himself a second time to green peas, though they were the first
he had seen that year. 'Upon my word, Herr Rex, you almost convince me.
And yet you are a very young man.'
'How old do you think I am?' inquired Rex with a faint smile.
The doctor examined his face attentively and then looked long at his
hands. He became so much interested that he rose from his seat and came
and scrutinised Rex's features as though he were studying the points of
an animal.
'I am amazed,' he said, as he sat down again and adjusted his napkin
upon his knees. 'I do not see anything to prove that you are more than
two or three and thirty.'
'I was forty years old on my last birthday--and I was still a student
at Schwarzburg,' replied Rex quietly.
'You have a very fine action of the heart,' observed the doctor, 'I
would not have thought it, but your age heals the wound in my vanity.
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