HE slept uneasily, and woke abruptly to a room flooded with sunlight,
and an unaccountable sense of something gone wrong. He dressed
hurriedly, and had opened his door, when he heard his name called from
below. It was Annot, he knew, but her voice was strange, terrified--a
helpless cry new to her accustomed poise. “Anthony! Anthony!” she called
from the conservatory.
Rufus Hardinge, who, it was evident from his clothes had not been in
bed, was standing rigidly before the row of plants upon whose flowering
they had so intently waited. And, in a rapid glance, Anthony saw
that they had blossomed in delicate, parti-colored petals--some pale
lavender, others deep purple, still others reddish white. Annoys yellow
wrap was thrown carelessly about her nightgown, her feet were bare, and
her hair hung in a tangle about her blanched face.
When Anthony entered she clung to his arm, and he saw that she was
trembling violently. For a tense moment they were silent: the sun
streamed over the mathematical plant ranks and lit the white or blue
tickets tied to their stems; a bubbling chorus of birds filled the world
of leaves without. “It's all wrong,” she sobbed.
“So!” the biologist finally said with a wry smile; “you see that I have
not solved the riddle of the universe; inheritance in pure line is not
explicated.... A life of labor as void as any prostitute's; not a single
fact, not a supposition warranted, not a foot advanced.”
With a sudden and violent movement for which they were entirely
unprepared he swept the row of plants crashing upon the floor; where,
in a scattered heap of brown loam, broken pottery, smeared bloom, their
tenuous, pallid roots quivered in air. “Games with plants and animals
and bones for elderly children; riddles without answer... blind ways.”
His expression grew furtive, cunning. “I have been trifled with,” he
declared, “I have been deliberately misled; but I desire to say that
I see through--through Him: I comprehend His little joke. It's in bad
taste... to leave a soul in the dark, blundering about in the cellar
with the table spread above. But in the end I was not completely
bamboozled. He was not quick enough... the hem of His garment.
“Your mother saw Him clear. She was considered beautiful, but beauty's a
vague term. Perhaps if I saw her now it would be clearer to me. But I'll
tell you His little joke,” he lowered his voice confidentially--“it's
all true--that apocalyptical heaven; there's a big book, trumpets,
angels all complete singing Gregorian chants. What a sell!” He laughed,
a gritty, mirthless performance.
“Come up to your room, father,” Annot urged; “his arm, Anthony.” Anthony
placed his hand gently upon the biologist's shoulder, but the latter
wrenched himself free. Suddenly with a choked cry and arms swinging like
flails he launched himself upon the orderly plants. Before he could be
stopped row upon row splintered on the floor; he fought, struggled
with them as though they were animate opponents, cursed them in a high,
raving voice. Anthony quickly lifted him, pinning his arms to his sides.
Annot had turned away, her shoulders shaking with sobs.
Rufus Hardinge's struggling unexpectedly ceased, his countenance
regained completely its habitual quietude. “I shall begin once more,
at the beginning,” he whispered infinitely wistful. “The little ray of
light... germ of understanding. The scientific problem of the future,”
his speech became labored, thick, “scientific... future. Other avenue of
progress:
“Gentlemen, the Royal Society, a paper on, on--Tears, gentlemen...
not only automatic,” his voice sank to a mere incomprehensible
babble. Anthony carried him to his bed, while Annot telephoned for the
neurologist.
After the specialist had gone Annot came in to where Anthony waited
in the study. Her feet were thrust in the Turkish slippers, her hair
twisted into a hasty knot, but otherwise she had not changed. She came
swiftly, with pale lips and eyes brilliantly shining from dark hollows,
to his side. “His wonderful brain is dead,” she told him. “Professor
Jamison thinks there will be only a few empty years to the end. But
actually it's all over.” In a manner utterly incomprehensible to him she
was crying softly in his arms.
He must lead her to a chair, he told himself, release her at once. Yet
she remained with her warm, young body pressed against him, the circle
of her arms about his neck, her tears wet upon his cheek. He stepped
back, but she would have fallen if he had not continued to support
her. His brain whirled under the assault, the surrender, of her dynamic
youth. Their mouths met; were bruised in kissing.