ANNOT, as now he mentally termed her, dressed in the inevitable yellow,
was swinging a satin slipper on the point of her foot; her father was,
if possible, more greyly withdrawn than before.
“To-night,” the biologist finally addressed his daughter, “your mother
has been dead eighteen years.... She hated science; she said it had
destroyed my heart. Impossible--a purely functionary pump. The illusions
of emotions are cerebro-spinal reflexes, only that. She said that I
cared more for science than--than herself.” He raised his head sharply,
“I was forced to tell her the truth, in common honor: science first....
Tears are an automatic escapement to protect the vision. But women
have no logic, little understanding; hopelessly romantic, a false
quantity--romance, dangerous. I was away when she died ... Borneo,
Aurignacian strata had been discovered, a distinct parallel with the
Maurer jaw. Death is only a change of chemical activity,” he shot at
Anthony in a voice not entirely steady, “the human entity a passing
agglomeration, kinetic.... Love is a mechanical principle, categorically
imperative,” his voice sank, became diffuse. “Absolute science,
selfless.
“People found her beautiful, I didn't know,” he added wistfully; “beauty
is a vague term. The Chapelle skull is beautiful, as I understand it, as
I understand it. In a letter to me,” after a long pause, “she employed
the term 'frozen to death'; she said that I had frozen her to death.
Only a figure, romantic, inexact.”
“Stuff!” Annot exclaimed lightly, but her anxious countenance
contradicted the spirit of her tones. “You mustn't stir about in old
troubles. Everything great demands sacrifice; mother didn't quite
understand; and I expect she got lonely, poor dear.”
Anthony rose, and made his way somberly toward the stable, but running
feet, his name called in low, urgent tones, arrested his progress.
An-not approached with the trouble deepening in her gaze. “Does he seem
entirely himself to you?” she asked, but, before he could answer,--“of
course, you don't know him well enough. You see, he is working too much
again, an average of sixteen hours for the ten days past. I haven't said
anything because the most difficult part of his work is at an end.
If his last conclusions are right he will have only to scribble the
reports, put a book together.... I can always tell when he is overworked
by the cobwebs--he tries to brush them off his face,” she explained.
“They don't exist, of course.
“But I really wanted to say this,” she lifted her candid gaze to his
face. “Could you be a little more about the house? we might need you;
we'll use the car very little for a while.” The apprehension was clearly
visible now. “Would you mind helping him with his clothes; he gets them
mixed? It isn't regular, I know,” she told him; “but we have a great
deal of money; anything you required--”
“Perhaps I'd be better at that,” he suggested. “You know, you said I was
a rotten chauffeur.”
For a moment, appealing, she had seemed nearer to him, but now she
retreated spiritually, slipped behind her cold indifference. “There will
be nothing more to-night; if he grows worse you will have to move into
the house.” She left him abruptly, gathering her filmy skirt from the
grass, an elusive shape with gleams on her hair, her arms and neck white
for an instant and then veiled in the scarf of night.
In his room he could still hear, mingled with the faint, muffled
squeaking of the mice in the empty hayloft, Hardinge's voice, jerky,
laborious, “a categorical imperative... categorical imperative.” He
wondered what that meant applied to love? An errant air brought him the
unmistakable odor of white lilacs, an ineffable impression of Eliza.