Part 24 (1/2)

The doctor laughed again. ”You'll have to learn German, then, I 'm afraid. It is still in circulation in Germany, I believe, on its merits as a serious book. I haven't a copy of the edition in English. THAT was all exhausted by collectors who bought it for its supposed obscenity, like Burton's 'Arabian Nights.' Come this way, and I will show you my laboratory.”

They moved out of the room, and through a pa.s.sage, Ledsmar talking as he led the way. ”I took up that subject, when I was at college, by a curious chance. I kept a young monkey in my rooms, which had been born in captivity. I brought home from a beer hall--it was in Germany--some pretzels one night, and tossed one toward the monkey. He jumped toward it, then screamed and ran back shuddering with fright. I couldn't understand it at first. Then I saw that the curled pretzel, lying there on the floor, was very like a little coiled-up snake. The monkey had never seen a snake, but it was in his blood to be afraid of one.

That incident changed my whole life for me. Up to that evening, I had intended to be a lawyer.”

Theron did not feel sure that he had understood the point of the anecdote. He looked now, without much interest, at some dark little tanks containing thick water, a row of small gla.s.s cases with adders and other lesser reptiles inside, and a general collection of boxes, jars, and similar receptacles connected with the doctor's pursuits. Further on was a smaller chamber, with a big empty furnace, and shelves bearing bottles and apparatus like a drugstore.

It was pleasanter in the conservatory--a low, s.p.a.cious structure with broad pathways between the plants, and an awning over the sunny side of the roof. The plants were mostly orchids, he learned. He had read of them, but never seen any before. No doubt they were curious; but he discovered nothing to justify the great fuss made about them. The heat grew oppressive inside, and he was glad to emerge into the garden. He paused under the grateful shade of a vine-clad trellis, took off his hat, and looked about him with a sigh of relief. Everything seemed old-fas.h.i.+oned and natural and delightfully free from pretence in the big, overgrown field of flowers and shrubs.

Theron recalled with some surprise Celia's indictment of the doctor as a man with no poetry in his soul. ”You must be extremely fond of flowers,”

he remarked.

Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. ”They have their points,” he said briefly. ”These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoecious species. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin's theory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late by-product of these earlier forms.”

”And is his theory right?” asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show of interest.

”We may know in the course of three or four hundred years,” replied Ledsmar. He looked up into his guest's face with a quizzical half-smile.

”That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicated question as s.e.x is involved,” he added. ”We have been studying the female of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, and we haven't arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions.”

They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forward of which were beginning to show bloom. ”Here another task will begin next month,”

the doctor observed. ”These are salvias, pentstemons, and antirrhinums, or snapdragons, planted very thick for the purpose. Humble-bees bore holes through their base, to save the labor of climbing in and out of the flowers, and we don't quite know yet why some hive-bees discover and utilize these holes at once, while others never do. It may be merely the old-fogy conservatism of the individual, or there may be a law in it.”

These seemed very paltry things for a man of such wisdom to bother his head about. Theron looked, as he was bidden, at the rows of hives s.h.i.+ning in the hot sun on a bench along the wall, but offered no comment beyond a casual, ”My mother was always going to keep bees, but somehow she never got around to it. They say it pays very well, though.”

”The discovery of the reason why no bee will touch the nectar of the EPIPACTIS LATIFOLIA, though it is sweet to our taste, and wasps are greedy for it, WOULD pay,” commented the doctor. ”Not like a blue rhododendron, in mere money, but in recognition. Lots of men have achieved a half-column in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' on a smaller basis than that.”

They stood now at the end of the garden, before a small, dilapidated summer-house. On the bench inside, facing him, Theron saw a strange rec.u.mbent figure stretched at full length, apparently sound asleep, or it might be dead. Looking closer, with a startled surprise, he made out the shaven skull and outlandish garb of a Chinaman. He turned toward his guide in the expectation of a scene.

The doctor had already taken out a note-book and pencil, and was drawing his watch from his pocket. He stepped into the summer-house, and, lifting the Oriental's limp arm, took account of his pulse. Then, with head bowed low, side-wise, he listened for the heart-action. Finally, he somewhat brusquely pushed back one of the Chinaman's eyelids, and made a minute inspection of what the operation disclosed. Returning to the light, he inscribed some notes in his book, put it back in his pocket, and came out. In answer to Theron's marvelling stare, he pointed toward a pipe of odd construction lying on the floor beneath the sleeper.

”This is one of my regular afternoon duties,” he explained, again with the whimsical half-smile. ”I am increasing his dose monthly by regular stages, and the results promise to be rather remarkable. Heretofore, observations have been made mostly on diseased or morbidly deteriorated subjects. This fellow of mine is strong as an ox, perfectly nourished, and watched over intelligently. He can a.s.similate opium enough to kill you and me and every other vertebrate creature on the premises, without turning a hair, and he hasn't got even fairly under way yet.”

The thing was unpleasant, and the young minister turned away. They walked together up the path toward the house. His mind was full now of the hostile things which Celia had said about the doctor. He had vaguely sympathized with her then, upon no special knowledge of his own. Now he felt that his sentiments were vehemently in accord with hers. The doctor WAS a beast.

And yet--as they moved slowly along through the garden the thought took sudden shape in his mind--it would be only justice for him to get also the doctor's opinion of Celia. Even while they offended and repelled him, he could not close his eyes to the fact that the doctor's experiments and occupations were those of a patient and exact man of science--a philosopher. And what he had said about women--there was certainly a great deal of ac.u.men and shrewd observation in that. If he would only say what he really thought about Celia, and about her relations with the priest! Yes, Theron recognized now there was nothing else that he so much needed light upon as those puzzling ties between Celia and Father Forbes.

He paused, with a simulated curiosity, about one of the flower-beds.

”Speaking of women and religion”--he began, in as casual a tone as he could command--”I notice curiously enough in my own case, that as I develop in what you may call the--the other direction, my wife, who formerly was not especially devote, is being strongly attracted by the most unthinking and hysterical side of--of our church system.”

The doctor looked at him, nodded, and stooped to nip some buds from a stalk in the bed.

”And another case,” Theron went on--”of course it was all so new and strange to me--but the position which Miss Madden seems to occupy about the Catholic Church here--I suppose you had her in mind when you spoke.”

Ledsmar stood up. ”My mind has better things to busy itself with than mad a.s.ses of that description,” he replied. ”She is not worth talking about--a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed lewdness. If she were even a type, she might be worth considering; but she is simply an abnormal sport, with a little brain addled by notions that she is like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact that she has money. Her father is a decent man. He ought to have her whipped.”

Mr. Ware drew himself erect, as he listened to these outrageous words.

It would be unmanly, he felt, to allow such comments upon an absent friend to pa.s.s unrebuked. Yet there was the courtesy due to a host to be considered. His mind, fluttering between these two extremes, alighted abruptly upon a compromise. He would speak so as to show his disapproval, yet not so as to prevent his finding out what he wanted to know. The desire to hear Ledsmar talk about Celia and the priest seemed now to have possessed him for a long time, to have dictated his unpremeditated visit out here, to have been growing in intensity all the while he pretended to be interested in orchids and bees and the drugged Chinaman. It tugged pa.s.sionately at his self-control as he spoke.

”I cannot in the least a.s.sent to your characterization of the lady,” he began with rhetorical dignity.