Part 6 (2/2)
”Absolutely.”
She leaned towards him.
”You will let no one else have it, Alexis,” she asked softly. ”Only me?”
Sarakoff glanced at me.
”Leonora, you are very selfish.”
”Of course.”
”Well, you are not the only person who is going to have the elixir. The whole world is going to have it.”
I watched her with absorbed attention. She seemed to accept the idea of an elixir of youth without any incredulity, and did not find anything extraordinary in the fact of its discovery. In that respect, I fancied, she was typical of a large cla.s.s of women--that cla.s.s that thinks a doctor is a magician, or should be. But when Sarakoff said that the whole world was going to have the elixir, a spasm of anger shewed for a moment in her face. She lowered her eyes.
”This is unkind of you, Alexis. Why should not just you and I have the elixir?” She raised her eyes and turned them directly on Sarakoff. ”Why not?” she murmured.
The Russian flushed slightly.
”Leonora, it must either not be, or else the whole world must have it.
It can't be confined. It must spread. It's a germ. We have let it loose in Birmingham.”
She shuddered.
”A germ? What does he mean?” She turned to me.
”It's a germ that will do away with all disease and decay,” I said.
”It will make me younger?”
”Of that I am uncertain. It will more probably fix us where we are.”
The Russian nodded in confirmation of my view. Leonora considered for a while. I could see nothing in her appearance that she could have wished altered, but she seemed dissatisfied.
”I should have preferred it to make us all a little younger,” she said decidedly. Her total lack of the sense of miracles astonished me. She behaved as if Sarakoff had told her that we had discovered a new kind of soap or a new patent food. ”But I am glad you have found it, Alexis,”
she continued. ”It will certainly make you famous. That will be nice, but I am sorry you should have given the elixir to Birmingham first.
Birmingham is in no need of an elixir, my friend. You should have put something else in their water-supply.” She turned to me and examined me with calm criticism. ”What a pity you didn't discover the elixir when you were younger, Richard. Your hair is grey at the temples.” A clear laugh suddenly came from her. ”What a lot of jealously there will be, Alexis. The old ones will be so envious of the young. Think how Madame Reaour will rage--and Betty, and the Signora--all my friends--oh, I feel quite glad now that it doesn't make people younger. You are sure it won't?”
”I don't think so,” said Sarakoff, watching her through half-closed lids. ”No, I think you are safe, Leonora.”
”And my voice?”
”It will preserve that ... indefinitely, I think.”
She was arrested by the new idea. She looked into the distance and fingered the pearls at her throat.
”Then I shall become the most famous singer in the whole world,” she murmured. ”And I shall have all the money I want. My friend, you have done me a service. I will not forget it.” She looked at him and laughed slightly. ”But I do not think you have done the world a service. A great many people will not like the germ. No, they will desire to get rid of it, Alexis.”
<script>