Master of His Fate | Page 7

be stroked and fondled. When he left her, she cried after him piteously, and wistfully watched him out of sight.
"Do you know the beautiful creature?" asked Lady Lefevre.
"Yes," answered Julius quietly; "I brought her over some months ago."
Lefevre had explained to his mother that Julius had always been on friendly or fond terms with animals, but never till now had he seen the remarkable understanding he clearly maintained with them.
"Look!" said Lady Lefevre to her son as they turned to leave the Gardens. "He seems to have fascinated Nora as much as the beasts."
Nora stood a little aloof, regarding Julius in an ecstasy of admiration. When she found her mother was looking at her, her eyes sank, and as it were a veil of blushes fell over her. Mother and son walked on first, and Julius followed with Nora.
"He is a most charming and extraordinary man," said the mother.
"He is," said the son, "and amazingly intelligent."
"He seems to know everything, and to have been everywhere,--to have been a kind of rolling stone. If anything should come of this, I suppose he can afford to marry. You ought to know about him."
"I believe I know as much as any one."
"He has no profession?" queried the lady.
"He has no profession; but I suppose he could afford it," said Lefevre musingly.
"You don't like the idea," said his mother.
"Not much. I scarce know why. But I somehow think of him as not having enough sense of the responsibility of life."
"I suppose his people are of the right sort?"
"I suppose they are; though I don't know if he has any people," said he, with a laugh. "He is the kind of man who does not need parents or relations."
"Still, hadn't you better try to find out what he may have in that line?"
"Yes," said Lefevre; "perhaps I had."
Chapter II.
A Mysterious Case.
The two friends returned, as they had arranged, to the Hyacinth Club for dinner. Courtney's coruscating brilliancy sank into almost total darkness when they parted from Lady and Miss Lefevre, and when they sat down to table he was preoccupied and silent, yet in no proper sense downcast or dull. Lefevre noted, while they ate, that there was clear speculation in his eye, that he was not vaguely dreaming, but with alert intelligence examining some question, or facing some contingency; and it was natural he should think that the question or contingency must concern Nora as much as Julius. Yet he made no overture of understanding, for he knew that Courtney seldom offered confidence or desired sympathy; not that he was churlish or reserved, but simply that he was usually sufficient unto himself, both for counsel and for consolation. Lefevre was therefore surprised when he was suddenly asked a question, which was without context in his own thought.
"Have you ever found something happen or appear," said Julius, "that completely upsets your point of view, and tumbles down your scheme of life, like a stick thrust between your legs when you are running?"
"I have known," said Lefevre, "a new fact arise and upset a whole scientific theory. That's often a good thing," he added, with a pointed glance; "for it compels a reconstruction of the theory on a wider and sounder basis."
"Yes," murmured Julius; "that may be. But I should think it does not often happen that the new fact swallows up all the details that supported your theory,--as Aaron's rod, turned into a serpent, swallowed up the serpent-rods of the magicians of Egypt,--so that there is no longer any theory, but only one great, glorious fact. I do admire," he exclaimed, swerving suddenly, "the imagination of those old Greeks, with their beautiful, half-divine personifications of the Spirits of Air and Earth and Sea! But their imagination never conceived a goddess that embodied them all!"
"I have often thought, Julius," said Lefevre, "that you must be some such embodiment yourself; for you are not quite human, you know."
The doctor said that with a clear recollection of his mother's request. He hoped that his friend would take the cue, and tell him something of his family. Julius, however, said nothing but "Indeed." Lefevre then tried to tempt him into confession by talking about his own father and mother, and by relating how the French name "Lefevre" came to be domiciled in England; but Julius ignored the temptation, and dismissed the question in an eloquent flourish.
"What does a man want with a family and a name? They only tie him to the earth, as Gulliver was tied by the people of Lilliput. We have life and health,--if we have them,--and it is only veiled prurience to inquire whence we got them. A man can't help having a father and a mother, I suppose; but he need not be always reminding himself of the fact: no other creature on earth