1. There are Heroisms All Round Us
MR. HUNGERTON, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earthāa fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centred upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallismāa subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange.
āSuppose,ā he cried, with feeble violence, āthat all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously and immediate payment insisted upon. What, under our present conditions, would happen then?ā
I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.
At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope, hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind.
She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazetteāperfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figureāthese, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned as much as thatāor had inherited it in that race-memory which we call instinct.
Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold and hard, but such a thought was treason. That delicately-bronzed skin, almost Oriental in its colouring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lipsāall the stigmata of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.
So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence when two critical dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof.
āI have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldnāt, for things are so much nicer as they are.ā
I drew my chair a little nearer.
āNow, how did you know that I was going to propose?ā I asked, in genuine wonder.
āDonāt women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But, oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Donāt you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?ā
āI donāt know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face withāwith the station-master.ā I canāt imagine how that official came into the matter, but in he trotted and set us both laughing. āThat does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you and your head on my breast, and, oh, Gladys, I wantāāā
She had sprung from her chair as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some of my wants.
āYouāve spoiled everything, Ned,ā she said. āItās all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in. It is such a pity. Why canāt you control yourself?ā
āI didnāt invent it,ā I pleaded. āItās nature. Itās love!ā
āWell, perhaps if both love it may be different. I have never felt it.ā
āBut, you mustāyou, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you were made for love! You must love!ā
āOne must wait till it comes.ā
āBut why canāt you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?ā
She did unbend a little. She put forward a handāsuch a gracious, stooping attitude it wasāand she pressed back my head. Then she looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile.
āNo, it isnāt that,ā she said at last. āYouāre not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you that it is not that. Itās deeper.ā
āMy character?ā
She nodded severely.
āWhat can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really I wonāt, if youāll only sit down!ā
She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white! And perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down.
āNow tell me whatās amiss with me.ā
āIām in love with somebody else,ā said she.
It was my turn to jump out of my chair.
āItās nobody in particular,ā she explained, laughing at the expression of my face, āonly an ideal. Iāve never met the kind of man I mean.ā
āTell me about him. What does he look like?ā
āOh, he might look very much like you.ā
āHow dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I donāt do? Just say the wordāteetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, Theosophist, SupermanāIāll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only give me an idea what would please you.ā
She laughed at the elasticity of my character. āWell, in the first place, I donāt think my ideal would speak like that,ā she said. āHe would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girlās whim. But above all he must be a man who could do, who could act, who would look death in the face and have no fear of himāa man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won, for they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wifeās life of him I could so understand her love. And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honoured by all the world, as the inspirer of noble deeds.ā
She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on with the argument.
āWe canāt all be Stanleys and Burtons,ā said I. āBesides, we donāt get the chanceāat least, I never had the chance. If I did I should try to take it.ā
āBut chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances. You canāt hold him back. Iāve never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. Itās for men to do them, and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind, but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting. The wind blew him one thousand five hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have envied her! Thatās what I should likeāto be envied for my man.ā
āIād have done it to please you.ā
āBut you shouldnāt do it merely to please me. You should do it because you canāt help it, because itās natural to youābecause the man in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?ā
āI did.ā
āYou never said so.ā
āThere was nothing worth bucking about.ā
āI didnāt know.ā She looked at me with rather more interest. āThat was brave of you.ā
āI had to. If you want to write good copy you must be where the things are.ā
āWhat a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. But still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine.ā She gave me her hand, but with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. āI dare say I am merely a foolish woman with a young girlās fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man.ā
āWhy should you not?ā I cried. āIt is women like you who brace men up. Give me a chance and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men ought to make their own chances, and not wait until they are given. Look at Cliveājust a clerk, and he conquered India. By George! Iāll do something in the world yet!ā
She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence.
āWhy not?ā she said. āYou have everything a man could haveāyouth, health, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am gladāso gladāif it wakens these thoughts in you.ā
āAnd if I doāāā
Her hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips.
āNot another word, sir. You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago, only I hadnāt the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.ā
And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it?
And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age, but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.
2. Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger
I ALWAYS liked McArdle, the crabbed old, round backed, red-headed news editor, and I rather hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was the real boss, but he lived in the rarified atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum with his eyes staring vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf. He was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it was he that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he pushed his spectacles far up on his bald forehead.
āWell, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well,ā said he, in his kindly Scotch accent.
I thanked him.
āThe colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You have the true descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?ā
āTo ask a favour.ā
He looked alarmed and his eyes shunned mine.
āTut! tut! What is it?ā
āDo you think, sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? I would do my best to put it through and get you some good copy.ā
āWhat sort of a meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?ā
āWell, sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I would really do my very best. The more difficult it was the better it would suit me.ā
āYou seem very anxious to lose your life.ā
āTo justify my life, sir.ā
āDear me, Mr. Malone, this is veryāvery exalted. Iām afraid the day for this sort of thing is rather past. The expense of the āspecial meesionā business hardly justifies the result, and, of course, in any case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would command public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and thereās no room for romance anywhere. Wait a bit, though!ā he added, with a sudden smile upon his face. āTalking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea. What about exposing a fraudāa modern Munchausenāand making him rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, it would be fine. How does it appeal to you?ā
āAnythingāanywhereāI care nothing.ā
McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes.
āI wonder whether you could get on friendlyāor at least on talking terms with the fellow,ā he said, at last. āYou seem to have a sort of genius for establishing relations with peopleāseempathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am conscious of it myself.ā
āYou are very good, sir.ā
āSo why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of Enmore Park?ā
I dare say I looked a little startled.
āChallenger!ā I cried. āProfessor Challenger, the famous zoologist! Wasnāt he the man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?ā
The news editor smiled grimly.
āDo you mind? Didnāt you say it was adventures you were after?ā
āIt is all in the way of business, sir,ā I answered.
āExactly. I donāt suppose he can always be so violent as that. Iām thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the wrong fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him. Thereās something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should work it.ā
āI really know nothing about him,ā said I. āI only remember his name in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell.ā
āI have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. Iāve had my eye on the Professor for some little time.ā He took a paper from a drawer. āHere is a summary of his record. I give it you briefly:ā
ā āChallenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N.B., 1863. Educ.: Largs Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893. Resigned after acrimonious Correspondence same year. Winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign...