Part 10 (1/2)

”Wait till you see London,” he said. ”You'll wonder more then.”

She got up from the table suddenly and stood in the window while the doctor went on eating philosophically and smiling at her as he wished he could go all the way to Australia with her and watch her growing wonderment at the world.

”You know,” she said doubtfully, ”it seems so queer--all these people, and then that monument. I don't see the connection, somehow.”

”I see you standing there, and a lump of congealing mutton on your plate here,” said the doctor, and she sat down and ate a mouthful hurriedly.

”But what is the connection? What are they for?”

The doctor watched her in his precise way with his eyes twinkling at her over his gla.s.ses, which he wore on the end of his nose.

”I thought you were such a learned biologist, Marcella. Kraill would tell you they were the caskets of questing cells--seeking about for complementary cells that some day will themselves become the caskets of cells.”

”Ugh! That reminds me of all the clouds of flies on the dead fish in summer,” she said, pus.h.i.+ng her plate away. ”Flies--then maggots.”

”Exactly!” said the doctor, chuckling.

”But--” she began, and broke off, frowning.

”Don't you see any connection between all yon little people and the monument, though? A crawling ma.s.s of folks--and one or two stand out.

The others show they realize how these big ones stand out by making monuments for them. It infers, I think, that they'd all like to tower if they could.”

”Ah, that's better. But so few tower.”

”And that, Marcella, is just what I told you yon day we drove to Pitleathy. They're all patched--or I should say _we're_ all patched.

Either bodily, mentally or spiritually there are holes torn in us, and we've to be so busy patching them up from collapsing that we've no time to grow. As time goes on and we learn better there'll be less patching.

There'll be more growing up tall and straight--everyone--there'll be giants in those days, Marcella.”

”Yes,” she said slowly, and saw herself as one of them some day as she drew on her gloves rather awkwardly, for they were the first pair she had ever possessed. ”Oh, well--I'm not going to be patched at all, doctor. I simply won't have things tearing holes in me.”

London, of course, was even more amazing than Edinburgh. They had a day to spend there, and the doctor took her to Regent Street and Bond Street in the morning. He was enjoying himself in a melancholy sort of fas.h.i.+on.

Marcella was _tabula rasa_. It was interesting to watch the impressions registered on her surface.

The shops gave her none of the acquisitive pleasure he had expected. To her they were interesting as museums might have been. She could not, she did not see the use of them. The women thronging the windows and departments of a great store through which they walked roused her to excited comment.

”What are they buying them all for?” she said, looking at the hats and frocks and the purchasers. ”They have such nice ones already.”

The doctor asked her if she did not think they were very pretty when he had got over his amus.e.m.e.nt at the idea of women only buying things because they needed them.

”Oh beautiful!” she cried rapturously. ”But you couldn't do very much in frocks like that.”

”That's the idea, of course,” said the doctor, watching her quizzically.

”If you only knew it, Marcella, all these shops are built upon a foundation of what your professor calls 'questing cells.' You see--but let's get out into the air. You've started my bee buzzing now.”

They faced about and elbowed their way through an eager-eyed, aimless-footed throng by the doorway.

”Now go on,” said Marcella when they were in the street, walking down beside Liberty's. She had one eye on the windows and one ear for the doctor.

”You see, all these women here--they're doing something quite unconsciously when they buy pretty clothes and spend so much time and money on making themselves look so bonny,” said the doctor, striding along in his Inverness cape, quite oblivious that he was a very unique figure in Regent Street. ”They'll worry tremendously about what colour suits them, what style sets off their beauty best. I don't think that it's really because they like to see something bonny every time they look in their mirror. I don't think it's even that they want admiration, or envy. It's simply that they're ruled by the law of reproduction, if they only knew it. Inside them is new life--these same questing cells.