As she had no notion of Marvin’s being engaged in virtually that search,
her will to refuse him continued to lose weight by fits and starts, like
actinium.
On the afternoon of Sunday, the twenty-seventh, she restlessly rowed
round into the creek after white lilies. She gathered a score. Then, as
she leaned from the dory and dipped her arm into the brown water, she
caught sight of a speck of green gelatin on the stem of a lily, and
lifted it in.
It was hydra, and about ready to bud. She placed it in her cup, and
presently the daughter parted from the mother.
Hydra was virtually immortal, and would go on living as long as it could
find food, which might be for a thousand years, and every time it was a
little short of food it would produce another daughter. Such immortality
was not worth having. Life that was worth anything was precarious.
And the history of life on earth was the history of steadily decreasing
fertility. Species ran out, families ran out, but always in the effort
to get a finer product. A water lily, living but for days, was
infinitely better than hydra.