"
"You don't in the least look or write like a dehumanized saint, you
know," supplemented Alicia, laughing.
"What _do_ I look like, then?" He sat on the edge of a table and
cuddled a bony knee. Behind his glasses his eyes began to twinkle.
"You look more like yourself than you do like your photographs,"
decided Alicia.
The Author threw up his hands.
"And now, tell me this, please: How, when, where, and from whom, did
you acquire the supreme art of aiding and abetting an old house to
grow young again without losing its character?"
"We were born," Alicia explained, "with the inherent desire to do
just what we have been able to do here. This house gave us our big
chance. But it wouldn't have been so--so in keeping with itself,"
she was feeling for the right words, "if it hadn't been for Mr.
Nicholas Jelnik."
The Author pricked up his intellectual ears. His eyes narrowed.
"Jelnik? I knew a Jelnik, an Austrian alienist; met him at dinner at
the American Ambassador's in Vienna; quiet, unassuming, pleasant
man, and one of the greatest doctors in Europe."
"Mr. Jelnik is Doctor Jelnik's son."
"What!" shrieked The Author.
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