Why didn't they just eject Fatio and have a peaceful dinner? Because he had genuine merit. Confronted by a nobody so desperate to establish his reputation, Eliza's first impulse (and Waterhouse's, too, she inferred) was to assume he was a poseur .But he was not. Once he figured out that Eliza wasn't Catholic he had interesting things to say concerning religion and the state of French society. Once he figured out that Waterhouse was no alchemist, he began to discourse of mathematical functions in a way that snapped the Englishman awake. And Huygens, when he finally woke up and came downstairs, made it obvious by his treatment of Fatio that he rated him as an equal – or as close to equal as a man like Huygens could ever have.