At that instant consciousness began to return; he gave a sudden spasmodic and comprehensive flop; there was a report like a pistol. His chest improver had exploded.
Terrified, trembling, she dropped on her knees beside him; never before had she heard of a young man being blown to pieces by chloroform. Then, almost hysterical, she ran to the stream, filled her leather satchel with water, and, running back again, emptied it upon his upturned countenance.
Horror on horror! His golden brown hair — his very scalp seemed to be parting from his forehead — eyebrows, silky moustache, lips — his entire face seemed to be coming off; and, as she shrieked and tottered to her feet, he began to sputter and kick so violently that both pneumatic calves blew up like the reports of a double-barreled shotgun.
And Ethra reeled back against a tree and cowered there, covering her shocked eyes with shaking fingers.
VII
It is a surprising and trying moment for a girl who throws water upon a young man’s face to see that face begin to dissolve and come off, feature by feature, in polychromatic splendour.
She did not faint; her intellect reeled for a moment; then she dropped her hands from her eyes and saw him sitting up on the ground, blinking at her gravely from a streaked and gaudy countenance. His wig was tilted over one eye; rouge and pearl powder made his cheeks and chin very gay; and his handsome, silky moustache hung by one corner from his upper lip. It was too much. She sat down limply on a mossy log and wept.
His senses returned gradually; after a while he got up and walked down to the edge of the brook with all the dignity that unsteady legs permitted.
Fascinated, she watched him at his ablutions where he squatted by the water’s edge, scrubbing away as industriously as a washer-racoon. It did not occur to her to flee; curiosity dominated — an overpowering desire to see what he really resembled in puris naturalibus.
After a while he stood up, hurled the damp wig into the woods, wiped his hands on his knickerbockers and his face on his sleeve, and, bending over, examined his collapsed calves.
And all the while, as the fumes of the chloroform disappeared and he began to realise what had been done to him, he was becoming madder and madder.
She recognised the wrath in his face as he swung on his heel and came toward her.
“It is your own fault!” she said, resolutely, “for playing a silly trick like — —” But she observed his advance very dubiously, straightening up to her full slender height to confront him, but not rising to her feet. Her knees were still very shaky.
He halted close in front of her. Something in the interrogative yet fearless beauty of her upward gaze checked the torrent of indignant eloquence under which he was labouring, and, presently, left him even mentally mute, his lips parted stupidly.
She said: “According to the old order of things a well-bred man would ask my pardon. But a decently-bred man, in the first place, wouldn’t have done such a thing to me. So your apology would only be a paradox — —”
“What!” he exclaimed, stung into protest. “Am I to understand that after netting me and chloroforming me and nearly drowning me — —”
“My mistake was perfectly natural. Do you suppose that I would even dream of trailing you as you really are?”
He gazed at her bewildered; passed his unsteady hand over his countenance, then sat down abruptly beside her on the mossy log and buried his head in his hands.
She looked at him haughtily, sitting up very straight; he continued beside her in silence, face in his hands as though overwhelmed. Nothing was said for several minutes — until the clear disdain of her gaze changed, imperceptibly; and the rigidity of her spinal column relaxed.
“I am very sorry this has happened,” she said. There was, however, no sympathy in her tone. He made no movement to speak.
“I am sorry,” she repeated after a moment. “It is hard to suffer humiliation.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is.”
“But you deserved it.”
“How? I didn’t fashion my face and figure.”
She mistook him: “Somebody did.”
“Yes; my parents.”
“What!”
“Oh, I don’t mean that silly make-up,” he said, raising his head.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean my own face and figure. What you did to me — your netting me, doping me, and all that wasn’t a patch on what you said afterward.”
“What do you mean? What did I say?”
“You asked me if I supposed that you would dream of netting a man with a face and f-figure like — —”
“Mr. Langdon!”
“Didn’t you?”
“I — you — we — —”
“You did! And can any man suffer any humiliation to compare with words like those? I merely ask you.”
With eyes dilated, breath coming quickly, she stared at him, scarcely yet comprehending the blow which her words had dealt to one of the lords of creation.
“Mr. Langdon,” she said, “do you suppose that I am the sort of girl to deliberately criticise either your features or your figure?”
“But you did.”
“I merely meant that you should infer — —”
“I inferred it all right,” he said bitterly.
Perplexed, not knowing how to encounter such an unexpected reproach, vaguely distressed by it, she instinctively attempted to clear herself.
“Please listen. I hadn’t any idea of mortifying you by explaining that you are not qualified by nature to interest the modern woman in — —”
He turned a bright red.
“Do you suppose such a condemnation — such a total ostracism — is agreeable to a man? . . . Is there anything worse you can say about a man than to inform him that no woman could possibly take the slightest interest in him?”
“I didn’t say that. I said the modern woman — —”
“You’re all modern.”
“It is reported that there are still a few women sufficiently old-fashioned to — —”
“They don’t interest me.” He looked up at her. “What you’ve said has — simply — and completely — spoiled — my life,” he said slowly.
“What I said?”
“Yes.”
“What have — what could — what I — how — where — who is — —” and she checked herself, eyes on his.
“Yes,” he repeated with a curious sort of satisfaction, “you have spoiled my entire life for me.”
“What an utterly — what a wildly absurd and impossible — —”
“And you know it!” he insisted, with gloomy triumph.
“Know what?”
“That you’ve spoiled — —”
“Stop! Will you explain to me how — —”
“Is it necessary?”
“Necessary? Of course it is! You have made a most grave and serious and — and heartless charge against a woman — —”
“Yes, a heartless one — against you!”
“I? Heartless?”
“Cold, deliberate, cruel, unfeeling, merciless, remorseless — —”
“Mr. Langdon!”
“Didn’t you practically tell me that no woman could endure the sight of a face and figure like mine?”
“No, I did not. What a — a cruel accusation!”
“What did you mean, then?”
“That — that you are not exactly — qualified to — to become an ancestor of the physically perfect race which — —”
“What is wrong with me, then?”
She looked at him helplessly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean where am I below proof? Where am I lacking? What points count me out?”
Her sensitive underlip began to tremble.
“I — I don’t want to criticise you — —” she faltered.
“Please do. I beg of you. There are beauty doctors in town,” he added earnestly. “They can fix up a fellow — and I can go to a gymnasium, and take up deep-breath
ing and — —”
“But, Mr. Langdon, do you want to — to be — captured — —”
He looked into her bright and melting eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like to give you another chance at me.”
“Me? After what I did to you?”
“Will you?”
“Why, what a perfectly astonishing — —”
“Not very. Look me over and tell me what points count against me. I know I’m not good-looking, but I’d like to go into training for the bench — I mean — —”
“Mr. Langdon,” she said slowly, “surely you would not care to develop the featureless symmetry and the — the monotonous perfection necessary to — —”
“Yes, I would. I wish to become superficially monotonous. I’m too varied; I realise that. I want to resemble that make-up I wore — —”
“That! Goodness! What a horrid idea — —”
“Horrid? Didn’t you like it well enough to net me?”
“I — there was nothing expressive of my personal taste in my capturing you — I mean the kind of a man you appeared to be. It was my duty — a purely scientific matter — —”
“I don’t care what it was. You went after me. You wouldn’t go after me as I now appear. I want you to tell me what is lacking in me which would prevent you going after me again — from a purely scientific standpoint.”
She sat breathing irregularly, rather rapidly, pretty head bent, apparently considering her hands, which lay idly in her lap. Then she lifted her blue eyes and inspected him. And it was curious, too, that, now when she came to examine him, she did not seem to discover any faults.
“My nose doesn’t suit you, does it?” he asked candidly.
“Why, yes,” she said innocently, “it suits me.”
“That’s funny,” he reflected. “How about my ears?”
“They seem to be all right,” she admitted.
“Do you think so?”
“They seem to me to be perfectly good ears.”
“That’s odd. What is there queer about my face?”
She looked in vain for imperfections.
“Why, do you know, Mr. Langdon, I don’t seem to notice anything that is not entirely and agreeably classical.”
“But — my legs are thin.”
“Not very.”
“Aren’t they too thin?”
“Not too thin. . . . Perhaps you might ride a bicycle for a few days — —”
“I will!” he exclaimed with a boyish enthusiasm which lighted up his face so attractively that she found it fascinating to watch.
“Do you know,” she said slowly, “the chances are that I would have netted you anyway. It just occurred to me.”
“Without my make-up?” he asked, in delighted surprise.
“I think so. Why not?” she replied, looking at him with growing interest. “I don’t see anything the matter with you.”
“My chest improver exploded,” he ventured, being naturally honest.
“I don’t think you require it.”
“Don’t you? That is the nicest thing you ever said to me.”
“It’s only the truth,” she said, flushing a trifle in her intense interest. “And, as far as your legs are concerned, I really do not believe you need a bicycle or anything else. . . . In fact — in fact — I don’t see why you shouldn’t go with me to the University if — if you — care to — —”
“You darling!”
“Mr. Langdon! Wh-what a perfectly odd thing to s-say to me!”
“I didn’t mean it,” he said with enthusiasm; “I really didn’t mean it. What I meant was — you know — don’t you?”
She did not reply. She was absorbed in contemplating one small thumb.
“I’m all ready to go,” he ventured.
She said nothing.
“Shall we?”
She looked up, looked into his youthful eyes. After a moment she rose, a trifle pale. And he followed beside her through the sun-lit woods.
VIII
At the gate of the New Race University and Masculine Beauty Preserve the pretty gate-keeper on duty looked at Langdon, then at his fair captor, in unfeigned astonishment.
“Why, Ethra!” she said, “is that all you’ve brought home?”
“Did you think I was going to net a dozen?” asked Ethra Leslie, warmly. “Please unlock the gate. Mr. Langdon is tired and hungry, and I want the Regents to finish with him quickly so that he can have some luncheon.”
The gate-keeper, a distractingly pretty red-haired girl, regarded Langdon with dubious hazel eyes.
“He’ll never pass the examination,” she whispered to Ethra. “What on earth are you thinking of?”
“What are you thinking of, Marcella? You must be perfectly blind not to see that he complies with every possible requisite! The Regents’ inspection is bound to be only a brief formality. Be good enough to unbar the gates.”
Marcella slowly drew the massive bolts; hostile criticism was in the gaze with which she swept Langdon.
“Well, of all the insignificant looking young men,” she murmured to herself as Ethra and her acquisition walked away along the path, side by side.
IX
The collective and individual charms of the Board of Regents so utterly over-powered Langdon that he scarcely realised what was happening to him.
First, at their request, he sat cross-legged on the ground; and they walked round and round him, inspecting him. Under such conditions no man could be at his best; there was a silly expression on his otherwise attractive face, which, as their attitude toward him seemed to waver between indifference and disapproval, became unconsciously appealing.
“Kindly rise, Mr. Langdon,” said Miss Challis, chairman of the board.
Langdon got up, and his ears turned red with a sudden and burning self-consciousness.
“Please walk past us two or three times, varying your speed.”
He walked in the various styles to which he had been accustomed, changing speed at intervals and running the entire gamut between a graceful boulevard saunter and a lost-dog sprint.
“Now,” said the beautiful chairman, “be good enough to run past us several times.”
He complied and they studied his kangaroo-like action. Miss Vining even bent over and felt of his ankles doubtfully, and to his vivid confusion Miss Darrell strolled up, made him sit down on a log, placed one soft, white finger on his mouth, and, opening it coolly, examined the interior. Then they drew together, consulting in whispers, then Miss Challis came with a stethoscope and listened to his pneumatic machinery, while Miss Vining carelessly pinched his biceps and tried his reflexes. After which Miss Darrell pushed a thermometer into his mouth, measured his pulses and blood pressure, tested his sight and hearing and his sense of smell. The latter was intensely keen, as he was very hungry.
Then Miss Challis came and stood behind him and examined, phrenologically, the bumps on his head, while Miss Vining, seated at his feet, read his palm, and Miss Darrell produced a dream book and a pack of cards, and carefully cast his horoscope. But, except that it transpired that he was going to take a journey, that somebody was going to leave him money, and that a dark lady was coming over the sea to trouble him, nothing particularly exciting was discovered concerning him.
Miss Challis, relinquishing his head, produced a crystal and gazed into it. She did not say what she saw there. Miss Vining tried to hypnotise him and came near hypnotising herself. Which scared and irritated her; and she let him very carefully alone after that.
And all the while Ethra sat on a tree stump, hands tightly clasped in her lap, looking on with pathetic eagerness and timidly searching the pretty faces of the Board of Regents for any hopeful signs.
Presently the Board retired to a neighbouring cave to confer; and Langdon drew a deep breath of relief.
“Well,” he said, smiling at Ethra, “what do you think?”
“It will be horrid of them if they don’t award you a blue ribbon,” she sa
id.
“Good heavens!” he faltered, “do they give ribbons?”
“Certainly, first, second, third, and honourable mention. It is the scientific and proper method of classification.”
Fury empurpled his visage.
“That’s the limit!” he shouted, but she silenced him with a gesture, nodding her head toward the surrounding woods; and among the trees he caught sight of scores and scores of pretty girls furtively observing the proceedings.
“Don’t let them see you display any temper or you’ll lose their good will, Mr. Langdon. Please recollect that there is no sentiment in this proceeding; it is a scientific matter to be scientifically recorded — purely a matter of eugenics.”
Langdon gazed around him at the distant and charming faces peeping at him from behind trees and bushes. Everywhere bright eyes met his mischievously, gaily. An immense sense of happiness began to invade him. The enraptured and fatuous smile on his features now became almost idiotic as here and there, among the trees, he caught glimpses of still more young girls strolling about, arms interlacing one another’s waists. The prospect dazzled him; his wits spun like a humming top.
“Are — are many ladies likely to come and — and court me?” he asked timidly of Ethra.
A quick little pang shot through her; but she said with a forced smile: “Why do you ask? Are you a coquette, Mr. Langdon?”
“Oh, no! But, for example, I wouldn’t mind being rushed by that willowy blonde over there. I’d also like to meet the svelte one with store puffs and sorrel hair. She is a looker, isn’t she?”
“She is certainly very pretty,” said Ethra, biting her lips with unfeigned vexation.
He gazed entranced at the distant throng for a while.
“And that little grey-eyed romp — the very young and slim one,” he continued enthusiastically. “Me for a hammock with her in the goosy-goosy moonlight. . . . And I hope I’m going to meet a lot more — every one of ‘em. . . . What on earth is that?” he exclaimed, changing countenance and leaning forward. “By Jinks, it’s a man!”
“Certainly. There are four men here. You knew that.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 622