Like many men who override the opinions of others, Challenger was exceedingly sensitive when anyone took a liberty with his own. Each successive incisive sentence of his opponent had been like a barbed bandarillo in the flanks of a foaming bull. Now, in speechless fury, he was shaking his huge hairy fist over the chairman’s head in the direction of his adversary, whose derisive smile stimulated him to more furious plunges with which he butted the fat president along the platform. The assembly had in an instant become a pandemonium. Half the rationalists were scandalized, while the other half shouted “Shame! Shame!” as a sign of sympathy with their champion. The Spiritualists had broken into derisive shouts, while some rushed forward to protect their champion from physical assault.

  “We must get the old dear out,” said Lord Roxton to Malone. “He’ll be had for manslaughter if we don’t. What I mean, he’s not responsible—he’ll sock someone and be lagged for it.”

  The platform had become a seething mob, while the auditorium was little better. Through the crush Malone and Roxton elbowed their way until they reached Challenger’s side, and partly by judicious propulsion, partly by artful persuasion, they got him, still bellowing his grievances, out of the building. There was a perfunctory vote to the chairman, and the meeting broke up in riot and confusion. “The whole episode,” remarked The Times next morning, “was a deplorable one, and forcibly illustrates the danger of public debates where the subjects are such as to inflame the prejudices of either speakers or audience. Such terms as ‘Microcephalous idiot!’ or ‘Simian survival!’ when applied by a world-renowned Professor to an opponent, illustrate the lengths to which such disputants may permit themselves to go.”

  Thus by a long interpolation we have got back to the fact that Professor Challenger was in the worst of humours as he sat with the above-mentioned copy of The Times in his hand and a heavy scowl upon his brow. And yet it was that very moment that the injudicious Malone had chosen in order to ask him the most intimate question which one man can address to another.

  Yet perhaps it is hardly fair to our friend’s diplomacy to say that he had “chosen” the moment. He had really called in order to see for himself that the man for whom, in spite of his eccentricities, he had a deep reverence and affection, had not suffered from the events of the night before. On that point he was speedily reassured.

  “Intolerable!” roared the Professor, in a tone so unchanged that he might have been at it all night. “You were there yourself, Malone. In spite of your inexplicable and misguided sympathy for the fatuous views of these people, you must admit that the whole conduct of the proceedings was intolerable, and that my righteous protest was more than justified. It is possible that when I threw the chairman’s table at the President of the Psychic College I passed the bounds of decorum, but the provocation had been excessive. You will remember that this Smith or Brown person—his name is most immaterial—dared to accuse me of ignorance and of throwing dust in the eyes of the audience.”

  “Quite so,” said Malone, soothingly. “Never mind, Professor. You got in one or two pretty hard knocks yourself.”

  Challenger’s grim features unbent and he rubbed his hands with glee.

  “Yes, yes, I fancy that some of my thrusts went home. I imagine that they will not be forgotten. When I said that the asylums would be full if every man of them had his due I could see them wince. They all yelped, I remember, like a kennelful of puppies. It was their preposterous claim that I should read their hare-brained literature which caused me to display some little heat. But I hope, my boy, that you have called round this morning in order to tell me that what I said last night has had some effect upon your own mind, and that you have reconsidered these views which are, I confess, a considerable tax upon our friendship.”

  Malone took his plunge like a man.

  “I had something else in my mind when I came here,” said he. “You must be aware that your daughter Enid and I have been thrown together a good deal of late. To me, sir, she has become the one woman in the world, and I shall never be happy until she is my wife. I am not rich, but a good sub-editorship has been offered to me and I could well afford to marry. You have known me for some time and I hope you have nothing against me. I trust, therefore, that I may count upon your approval in what I am about to do.”

  Challenger stroked his beard and his eyelids drooped dangerously over his eyes.

  “My perceptions,” said he, “are not so dull that I should have failed to observe the relations which have been established between my daughter and yourself. This question however, has become entangled with the other which we were discussing. You have both, I fear, imbibed this poisonous fallacy which I am more and more inclined to devote my life to extirpating. If only on the ground of eugenics, I could not give my sanction to a union which was built upon such a foundation, I must ask you, therefore, for a definite assurance that your views have become more sane. I shall ask the same from her.”

  And so Malone suddenly found himself also enrolled among the noble army of martyrs. It was a hard dilemma, but he faced it like the man that he was.

  “I am sure, sir, that you would not think the better of me if I allowed my views as to truth, whether they be right or wrong, to be swayed by material considerations. I cannot change my opinions even to win Enid. I am sure that she would take the same view.”

  “Did you not think I had the better last night?”

  “I thought your address was very eloquent.”

  “Did I not convince you?”

  “Not in the face of the evidence of my own senses.”

  “Any conjuror could deceive your senses.”

  “I fear, sir, that my mind is made upon this point.”

  “Then my mind is made up also,” roared Challenger, with a sudden glare. “You will leave this house, sir, and you will return when you have regained your sanity.”

  “One moment!” said Malone. “I beg, sir, that you will not be precipitate. I value your friendship too much to risk the loss of it if it can, in any way, be avoided. Possibly if I had your guidance I would better understand these things that puzzle me. If I should be able to arrange it would you mind being present personally at one of these demonstrations so that your own trained powers of observation may throw a light upon the things that have puzzled me.”

  Challenger was enormously open to flattery. He plumed and preened himself now like some great bird.

  “If, my dear Malone, I can help you to get this taint—what shall we call it?—microbus spiritualensis—out of your system, I am at your service. I shall be happy to devote a little of my spare time to exposing those specious fallacies to which you have fallen so easy a victim. I would not say that you are entirely devoid of brains, but that your good nature is liable to be imposed upon. I warn you that I shall be an exacting inquirer and bring to the investigation those laboratory methods of which it is generally admitted that I am a master.”

  “That is what I desire.”

  “Then you will prepare the occasion and I shall be there. But meanwhile you will clearly understand that I insist upon a promise that this connection with my daughter shall go no further.”

  Malone hesitated.

  “I give my promise for six months,” he said at last.

  “And what will you do at the end of that time?”

  “I will decide when the time comes,” Malone answered diplomatically, and so escaped from a dangerous situation with more credit than at one time seemed probable.

  It chanced that, as he emerged upon the landing, Enid who had been engaged in her morning’s shopping, appeared in the lift. Malone’s easy Irish conscience allowed him to think that the six months need not start on the instant, so he persuaded Enid to descend in the lift with him. It was one of those lifts which are handled by whoever uses them, and on this occasion it so happened that, in some way best known to Malone, it stuck between the landing-stages, and in spite of several impatient rings it remained stuck for a good quarter of an hour. When the machinery resumed its functions, and when Enid was able at last to reach her home and Malone the street, the lovers had prepared themselves to wait for six months with every hope of a successful end to their experiment.*

  *See Appendix.

  CHAPTER XIV

  IN WHICH CHALLENGER MEETS A STRANGE COLLEAGUE

  Professor Challenger was not a man who made friends easily. In order to be his friend you had also to be his dependant. He did not admit of equals. But as a patron he was superb. With his Jovian air, his colossal condescension, his amused smile, his general suggestion of the god descending to the mortal, he could be quite overpowering in his amiability. But he needed certain qualities in return. Stupidity disgusted him. Physical ugliness alienated him. Independence repulsed him. He coveted the man whom all the world would admire, but who in turn would admire the superman above him. Such a man was Dr. Ross Scotton, and for this reason he had been Challenger’s favourite pupil.

  And now he was sick unto death. Dr. Atkinson of St. Mary’s who had already played some minor part in this record, was attending him, and his reports were increasingly depressing. The illness was that dread disease disseminated sclerosis, and Challenger was aware that Atkinson was no alarmist when he said that a cure was a most remote and unlikely possibility.

  It seemed a terrible instance of the unreasonable nature of things that a young man of science, capable before he reached his prime of two such works as “The Embryology of the Symibathetic Nervous System” or “The Fallacy of the Obsonic Index,” should be dissolved into his chemical elements with no personal or spiritual residue whatever. And yet the Professor shrugged his huge shoulders, shook his massive head, and accepted the inevitable. Every fresh message was worse than the last, and, finally, there was an ominous silence. Challenger went down once to his young friend’s lodging in Gower Street. It was a racking experience, and he did not repeat it. The muscular cramps which are characteristic of the complaint were tying the sufferer into knots, and he was biting his lips to shut down the screams which might have relieved his agony at the expense of his manhood. He seized his mentor by the hand as a drowning man seizes a plank.

  “Is it really as you have said? Is there no hope beyond the six months of torture which I see lying before me? Can you with all your wisdom and knowledge see no spark of light or life in the dark shadow of eternal dissolution?”

  “Face it, my boy, face it!” said Challenger. “Better to look fact in the face than to console oneself with fancies.”

  Then the lips parted and the long-pent scream burst forth. Challenger rose and rushed from the room.

  But now an amazing development occurred. It began by the appearance of Miss Delicia Freeman.

  One morning there came a knock at the door of the Victoria flat. The austere and taciturn Austin looking out at the level of his eyes perceived nothing at all. On glancing downwards, however, he was aware of a small lady, whose delicate face and bright bird-like eyes were turned upwards to his own.

  “I want to see the Professor,” said she, diving into her handbag for a card.

  “Can’t see you,” said Austin.

  “Oh, yes, he can,” the small lady answered serenely. There was not a newspaper office, a statesman’s sanctum, or a political chancellory which had ever presented a barrier strong enough to hold her back where she believed that there was good work to be done.

  “Can’t see you,” repeated Austin.

  “Oh, but really I must, you know,” said Miss Freeman, and made a sudden dive past the butler. With unerring instinct she made for the door of the sacred study, knocked, and forthwith entered.

  The lion head looked up from behind a desk littered with papers. The lion eyes glared.

  “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” the lion roared. The small lady was, however, entirely unabashed. She smiled sweetly at the glowering face.

  “I am so glad to make your acquaintance,” she said. “My name is Delicia Freeman.”

  “Austin!” shouted the Professor. The butler’s impassive face appeared round the angle of the door. “What is this, Austin. How did this person get here?”

  “I couldn’t keep her out,” wailed Austin. “Come, miss, we’ve had enough of it.”

  “No, no! You must not be angry—you really must not,” said the lady sweetly. “I was told that you were a perfectly terrible person, but really you are rather a dear.”

  “Who are you? What do you want? Are you aware that I am one of the most busy men in London?”

  Miss Freeman fished about in her bag once more. She was always fishing in that bag, extracting sometimes a leaflet on Armenia, sometimes a pamphlet on Greece, sometimes a note on Zenana Missions, and sometimes a psychic manifesto. On this occasion it was a folded bit of writing-paper which emerged.

  “From Dr. Ross Scotton,” she said.

  It was hastily folded and roughly scribbled—so roughly as to be hardly legible. Challenger bent his heavy brows over it.

  Please, dear friend and guide, listen to what this lady says. I know it is against all your views. And yet I had to do it. You said yourself that I had no hope. I have tested it and it works. I know it seems wild and crazy. But any hope is better than no hope. If you were in my place you would have done the same. Will you not cast out prejudice and see for yourself? Dr. Felkin comes at 3.

  J. Ross Scotton.

  Challenger read it twice over and sighed. The brain was clearly involved in the lesion: “He says I am to listen to you. What is it? Cut it as short as you can.”

  “It’s a spirit doctor,” said the lady.

  Challenger bounded in his chair.

  “Good God, am I never to get away from this nonsense!” he cried. “Can they not let this poor devil lie quiet on his deathbed but they must play their tricks upon him?”

  Miss Delicia clapped her hands and her quick little eyes twinkled with joy.

  “It’s not his deathbed. He is going to get well.”

  “Who said so?”

  “Dr. Felkin. He never is wrong.”

  Challenger snorted.

  “Have you seen him lately?” she asked.

  “Not for some weeks.”

  “But you wouldn’t recognise him. He is nearly cured.”

  “Cured! Cured of diffused sclerosis in a few weeks!”

  “Come and see.”

  “You want me to aid and abet in some infernal quackery. The next thing, I should see my name on this rascal’s testimonials. I know the breed. If I did come I should probably take him by the collar and throw him down the stair.”

  The lady laughed heartily.

  “He would say with Aristides: ‘Strike, but hear me.’ You will hear him first, however, I am sure. Your pupil is a real chip of yourself. He seems quite ashamed of getting well in such an unorthodox way. It was I who called Dr. Felkin in against his wish.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? You took a great deal upon yourself.”

  “I am prepared to take any responsibility, so long as I know I am right. I spoke to Dr. Atkinson. He knows a little of psychic matters. He is far less prejudiced than most of you scientific gentlemen. He took the view that when a man was dying, in any case it could matter little what you did. So Dr. Felkin came.”

  “And pray how did this quack doctor proceed to treat the case?”

  “That is what Dr. Ross Scotton wants you to see.” She looked at a watch which she dragged from the depths of the bag. “In an hour he will be there. I’ll tell your friend you are coming. I am sure you would not disappoint him. Oh!” She dived into the bag again. “Here is a recent note upon the Bessarabian question. It is much more serious than people think. You will just have time to read it before you come. So good-bye, dear Professor, and au revoir!”

  She beamed at the scowling lion and departed.

  But she had succeeded in her mission, which was a way she had. There was something compelling in the absolutely unselfish enthusiasm of this small person who would, at a moment’s notice, take on anyone from a Mormon Elder to an Albanian brigand, loving the culprit and mourning the sin. Challenger came under the spell, and shortly after three he stumped his way up the narrow stair and blocked the door of the humble bedroom where his favourite pupil lay stricken. Ross Scotton lay stretched upon the bed in a red dressing-gown, and his teacher saw, with a start of surprised joy, that his face had filled out and that the light of life and hope had come back into his eyes.

  “Yes, I’m beating it!” he cried. “Ever since Felkin held his first consultation with Atkinson I have felt the life-force stealing back into me. Oh, chief, it is a fearful thing to lie awake at night and feel these cursed microbes nibbling away at the very roots of your life! I could almost hear them at it. And the cramps when my body—like a badly articulated skeleton—would all get twisted into one rigid tangle! But now, except some dyspepsia and urticaria of the palms, I am free from pain. And all on account of this dear fellow here who has helped me.”

  He motioned with his hand as if alluding to someone present. Challenger looked round with a glare, expecting to find some smug charlatan behind him. But no doctor was there. A frail young woman, who seemed to be a nurse, quiet, unobtrusive, and with a wealth of brown hair, was dozing in a corner. Miss Delicia, smiling demurely, stood in the window.

  “I am glad you are better, my dear boy,” said Challenger. “But do not tamper with your reason. Such a complaint has its natural systole and diastole.”

  “Talk to him, Dr. Felkin. Clear his mind for him,” said the invalid.

  Challenger looked up at the cornice and round at the skirting. His pupil was clearly addressing some doctor in the room and yet none was visible. Surely his aberration had not reached the point when he thought that actual floating apparitions were directing his cure.

  “Indeed, it needs some clearing,” said a deep and virile voice at his elbow. He bounded round. It was the frail young woman who was talking.

  “Let me introduce you to Dr. Felkin,” said Miss Delicia, with a mischievous laugh.