A TRAVELLER'S TALES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8589, 16 September 1893, Page 2

A TRAVELLER'S TALES.

•o Br Morley Roberts.

X. 'OOXLI. Mrs Lacy was both beautiful. and brilliant, but like all beautiful living things, she had one fault at the very least, and it was not one which commended itself to her circle of Parisian adorers. This flaw in the bright American jewel was not that she loved her husband. Even allowing that she did, this story is not written from the standpoint of her fond and foolish admirers, who were hopelessly sympathetic with each other. They did not believe she cared one iota for Edward Lacy; experience had taught them that such a state of things was abnormal, and they knew, moreover, that he was incapable of admission to the charmed circle in which she walked. For he hated science of all description, save that of gastronomy, and she was an amateur in evolution. Mrs Lacy doated on Huxley, and the one desire of her life was to see him in the flesh. Her boudoir was full of sciemiQc It was characteristic of her that full lengths were conspicuously absent, for at the very best a body was to her but a poor pedestal for the palace of the soul. She adored mind, and in her very materialism abhorred matter, and in her photographic gallery Huxley was an easy first. He glared from the mantel-piece, beamed from the table, and from each wall looked incredulous at his own opposite image. He was enshrined in a cabinet, and framed in metal, in plush, and stood number one in an album of celebrated thinkers. The whole room reeked of him, and Lacy cared as much about the evolutionary courses of nature as he did about the institutes of Morm, or the calculus of variations. He wanted to enjoy himself in Paris, and only agreed with his wife's materialism so far as to be atheist as regards any other His serpent there was science. When a woman is always thinking about a man as a man she usually holds her tongue about him, but when he represents a creed she is apt to be voluble, even without encouragement. All that interests a woman's lover interests her; she sees with his eyes, takes in much of his mentality; it is the same with the milder form of scientific Platonism. So Mrs Lacy knew all about Darwin except what he meant; she could talk of Haeckel, and use many of his favourite words with deadly and unexpected effect; upon those of her listeners who knew their origin and sieniflcance; she could even follow Weissman to the extent of getting a violent headache, but of coarse, the work of the god of her idolatry was most frequently in her hands and on her tongue. She quoted him. verbatim; she quoted bim with a surprising freedom that often enough omitted any point there might be in the passage; she prattled of him; she dreamed of him. Once, when she was seriously ill and delirious, she yelled abont bim at the top of her voice until the Parisian doctor asked in despair who " 'Ooxli" was, and taking Lacy aside demanded the presence of this unknown as the indispensable baais of therapeutics. Without any doubt whatever he believed there was very much more than a mere friendship between his beautiful patient and the cacophonous unknown. Lacy gave the physician some grounds for his belief by his vigorous language on the subject; his scowl was sufficient even, without words. For the poor man hated " Ooxli" most ferociously ; he was inclined to disbelieve bim on principle; he had insane notions of becoming religious out of spite. He swore at Darwin in heaps, and execrated evolution; Haeckel was Beelzebub; Weissman a fiend incarnate. He

pondered the question of divorce; he asked whether it was possible to set up Huxley as a respondent by a legal fiction ; j in despair he took to dining vigorously, and too often might have answered any questions as to th<? evening's menu in the scornful words of the i American— " We d'd'nt eat, we drank." " All his most intimate friends, who would have been only too delighted to oust Huxley and give Lacy a case without legal fictions, moaned the scientific infatuation of the American in a dirge whose choras mainly consisted of bad language. They talked fugues on " le sacre 'Ooxli, * and cursed him in all the keys of jealousy. They made love to Mrs Lacy in all the styles at the command of an instructed Parisian wooer; some slandered science subtly, and others, praising it with amorous limitations, implored her to consider that though evolution might be long life and love were short. But sbo smiled at them over the cover of her beloved's last pamphlet, and they grew desperate and brutal. " I am oppressed by thi3 evolutionary theory," said Lacy, gloomily, to his dearest friend, Emile dcs Vignes. " I also," replied the Frenchman, energetically, "he is an incubus something unusual, unnatural, for Madame Lacy to talk of him so. Do the saints converse with the devil?" " My wife isn't a saint 1" said Lacy, shortly. " She is beautiful, and beauty includes sanctity." "I think you mean excludes the necessity of it," was Lacy's dry rejoinder. For he quite understood the young Parisian point of view. " Where is this man of science ?" asked Dcs Yignes, after he had pondered the husband's retort. " I don't know." "Ask him to dinner; she doesn't know him. Now he is an ideal, a vision to her. If she sees him he is sure to displease her. All men do," he added despairingly, and Lacy smiled, for he was only jealous of an Idea. Just then Mrs Lacy came into the smoking room, and Dcs Vignes jumped to his feet. He bowed over her right hand ; in her left was a book. "Your study to-day, my dear?" asked Lacy. "An article in the "Nineteenth Century,' " said she, with a slightly abstracted smile, " and I want your dictionary." "What is the word you don't know?' "Dolicho something," said his wife, " yes, dolicho-cephalic." " It means long-headed. Lawyers and alligators are perhaps examples," replied Lacy. His wife took the dictionary and verified his definition. As she turned to go, Lacy spoke again. " Whose article are you reading ? " " One of Huxley's," said Mrs Lacy, and Dcs Yignes made a noise something like a groan, while a shade fell over Lacy's face. She made her escape. " I will go over to London and scalp him," said Lacy; " or perhaps I might ask him to come to dinner really. If he is very displeasing I would give him his expenses and ten thousand francs to come over and disenchant my wife." Dcs Vignes started " Stay 1" said he, "suppose we hire an actor to imitate him?" "What good would that be?" asked Lacy, " could he talk science ?" " Why not? He could learn enough with a little study." " If she found it out she would never forgive mc," said Lacy. Dcs Vignes would have insured her finding it out, and Lacy, when he was quite sober, was not fool enough to put any such weapon into his friend's hand. But two days afterwards he had a row with his wife about Huxley, and got very much the worst of it. He made it up next morning, but the matter rankled in his heart, and in an evil moment it occurred to him that the day after was the first of April. About sis o'clock on the following evening, Mrs Lacy was sitting curled up in a couch with "Man's Piace in Nature" in her lap. la her heart she was inclined to believe that man's place was to make her way smooth in life, and in this she agreed with the bulk of her cultured countrywomen. But just then she was reading about the descent of humanity from the arboreal apes/ and being comfortable was not thinking of comfort. A despatch was brought to her, and when she read it " Man's Place in Nature " was on the floor. It ran thus: —" Huxley is in Paris. Will bring him to dine at eight.— Lacy." At first it seemed to be toogoodtobe true; she could not believe it. Yet there was the telegram, and she could not doubt her husband. So she flew into a violent state of excitement, and rang for the servant, and poured forth a series of orders which nearly stunned the girl. It was too late to cook a dinner of fitting importance at home, so she went off to the Cafe Anglais and gave them carte blanche to send up a dinner for three. She underlined carte blanche three times, and they understood what she meant. The manager knew Lacy very well, and set to work to give him the best and most expensive meal it was possible to arrange in the short space of time allowed. It was fit for the gods, and if Zeus ever got anything half so good when he went out to dine with the Ethiopians, their cookery roust have been as blameless as their conduct. And at eight o'clock Mrs Lacy was radiant, and radiantly attired. The hastily summoned hairdresser under the influence of her excitement, which he attributed to another cause, surpassed himself, and Invented a new style of arranging her mass of wonderful hair which almost melted him to tears, for it could not last for ever. He consoled himself in a strange fit of artistic altruism, as he pictured in bis rosy imagination how it. would fall about her like warm night on a nymph of alabaster. For envy died as he contemplated his own triumph. He withdrew in silence. Her maid had an evil half hour after he had gone. Every dress in h*r wardrobe seemed unfitted for the loftiest occasion of her life. She dismissed them scornfully, until Rosalie held up a creation in crimson and gold that on a less majestic woman might have excited derision. But Queens can wear colours that extinguish commoner glories, as angels may clothe themselves iv sunsets and place fierce stars! upon their brows. She looked glorious in the gold and crimson, subdued with a web of creamy lace. Her mere appearance was a justification of her existence. She went downstairs like a goddess. It was eight o'clock. 4 At half-pasl; eight she sat there still, bat triumphant certainty gave way to less assured hope. Every doubt assailed ber; possibilities of fraud made her hot; fears of strange accidents caused her heart to beat with violent irregularity, and she grew angry. At nine she sat there; bat she was no longer a beneficent goddess. She looked almost evil; her colour had gone; she was as pale as fine linen. The servants waited wondering. Rosalie went, in to speak to her, but came away without uttering a word, though the dinner was spoiling, and at last utterly ruined. At ten she spoke herself, and bade them leave it just as it stood. At half past ten Lacy came In. He had dined. His wife rose. . " Where is Huxley then T Her voice was quite calm, and it deceived Lacy. He laughed. "My dear. It is the first of April!" She turned and went upstairs without a word. During that year Lacy dined even more vigorously than ever. With him most of Mrs Lacy's admirers yielded her in despair to Huxley and the evil influence of science. Dcs Vignes alone remained persistent, and he went treacherously into the enemy's camp. He studied evolution switb the utmost vigour, and introduced

new authors and new theories to Mrs Lacy's notice. Being a man of considerable brain power, which his career as a golden youth and courtier of dames had not utterly destroyed, be became really Interested in the pursuits which passion had led him into. He took at loit to writing scientific papers, which were anything but contemptible, and Mrs Lacy saw t them. They seemed briiliant and clearly 1 argued. She acknowledged to Dcs that he could write as well as he coold speaic. His logic was very convincing; yet she found a great deal of difficuliy _ admitting soma of his conclusion*, even when the premises were not impugned. For some of his theories were not touched upon by Huxley in his published works. On the anniversary of the Ist of April Mrs Lacy sent a note to the club of whlea Lacy was a member to the effect that she had a box at the Opera that night. He w« to come and bring the Comte de la Roche, young De Foutaanger, an American lately come to Paris called Marcus Q Wentworth, and Dcs Vignes as well. A* niue the first three were waitingarnong U)e palms and flowers for Mrs Lacy, but the did not come. At half-past Licy strolled in, Dcs Vignes was not there. *' WsR, why aren't you with Mrs Lacy f* he asked his friends. " She has not come," chorussed the three anxiously. Lacy enquired at the office for his wife's box and could get no inform*. tion. Perhaps it was the box of one of her i friends. He went round the house to find j her without any success, and at iast w«ns | off with the other men to the club. By eleven he was at home. Hi-5 wife had not come in. At twelve precisely the carriage stopped at the door, and going out he fouud her already half-way up the stairs. " Where have you been T said he, angrily, ** and what did you mean by asking mc to go to the Opera and then not coming ? What have you been doing V Mrs Lacy stood on the stairs and adjusted her cloak without turning round. For a moment she seemed incliucd to give him no answer, for she went up two steps before she spoke. Then her voice was very clear and cold. " I have been dining with Huxley," she said, and went on to her room. When she entered it Lacy heard her turn the key. [end op the series.]