Even as a child he was exhibited as a prodigy--a shining example of the possibilities of the race, you know.

His father, who was also a professor of some sort, died when he was a baby.

His mother, unfortunately, possessed an income sufficient to make it unnecessary that Everard Charles should ever do a day's real work.

At the age of twenty, he was graduated from college; at the age of twenty-one he was married to--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say--he was married _by_--his landlady's daughter.

Quite likely the woman was ambitious to break into that higher life to which the professor aspired, and caught her cultured opportunity in an unguarded moment.