"Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve, when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which you do not dream of."
"Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty and enthusiasm.
"How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don"t know what awaits you at nine this evening?"
"You," I said, fascinated.
The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.
"At nine, then," she said. "No. 8 Rue d"Alouette."
I bowed, took my hat, gloves, and stick, and attended her to her carriage below.
Long after the blue-and-black victoria had whirled away down the crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and whose sorcery shall not fail till the last man returns his soul.
X
I lunched at my lodgings on the Quai Malthus, and I had but little appet.i.te, having fed upon such an unexpected variety of emotions during the morning.
Now, although I was already heels over head in love, I do not believe that loss of appet.i.te was the result of that alone. I was slowly beginning to realize what my recent att.i.tude might cost me, not only in an utter collapse of my scientific career, and the consequent material ruin which was likely to follow, but in the loss of all my friends at home. The Zoological Society of Bronx Park and the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution of Washington had sent me as their trusted delegate, leaving it entirely to me to choose the subject on which I was to speak before the International Congress. What, then, would be their att.i.tude when they learned that I had chosen to uphold the dangerous theory of the existence of the ux.
Would they repudiate me and send another delegate to replace me? Would they merely wash their hands of me and let me go to my own destruction?
"I will know soon enough," thought I, "for this morning"s proceedings will have been cabled to New York ere now, and read at the breakfast-tables of every old, moss-grown naturalist in America before I see the Countess d"Alzette this evening." And I drew from my pocket the roll of paper which she had given me, and, lighting a cigar, lay back in my chair to read it.
The ma.n.u.script had been beautifully type-written, and I had no trouble in following her brief, clear account of the circ.u.mstances under which the notorious ux-skin had been obtained. As for the story itself, it was somewhat fishy, but I manfully swallowed my growing nervousness and comforted myself with the belief of Darwin in the existence of the ux, and the subsequent testimony of Wallace, who simply stated what he had seen through his telescope, and then left it to others to identify the enormous birds he described as he had observed them stalking about on the snowy peaks of the Tasmanian Alps.
My own knowledge of the ux was confined to a single circ.u.mstance.
When, in 1897, I had gone to Tasmania with Professor Farrago, to make a report on the availability of the so-called "Tasmanian devil," as a subst.i.tute for the mongoose in the West Indies, I of course heard a great deal of talk among the natives concerning the birds which they affirmed haunted the summits of the mountains.
Our time in Tasmania was too limited to admit of an exploration then.
But although we were perfectly aware that the summits of the Tasmanian Alps are inaccessible, we certainly should have attempted to gain them had not the time set for our departure arrived before we had completed the investigation for which we were sent.
One relic, however, I carried away with me. It was a single greenish bronzed feather, found high up in the mountains by a native, and sold to me for a somewhat large sum of money.
Darwin believed the ux to be covered with greenish plumage; Wallace was too far away to observe the color of the great birds; but all the natives of Tasmania unite in affirming that the plumage of the ux is green.
It was not only the color of this feather that made me an eager purchaser, it was the extraordinary length and size. I knew of no living bird large enough to wear such a feather. As for the color, that might have been tampered with before I bought it, and, indeed, testing it later, I found on the fronds traces of sulphate of copper.
But the same thing has been found in the feathers of certain birds whose color is metallic green, and it has been proven that such birds pick up and swallow shining bits of copper pyrites.
Why should not the ux do the same thing?
Still, my only reason for believing in the existence of the bird was this single feather. I had easily proved that it belonged to no known species of bird. I also proved it to be similar to the tail-feathers of the ux-skin in Antwerp. But the feathers on the Antwerp specimen were gray, and the longest of them was but three feet in length, while my huge, bronze-green feather measured eleven feet from tip to tip.
One might account for it supposing the Antwerp skin to be that of a young bird, or of a moulting bird, or perhaps of a different s.e.x from the bird whose feather I had secured.
Still, these ideas were not proven. Nothing concerning the birds had been proven. I had but a single fact to lean on, and that was that the feather I possessed could not have belonged to any known species of bird. n.o.body but myself knew of the existence of this feather. And now I meant to cable to Bronx Park for it, and to place this evidence at the disposal of the beautiful Countess d"Alzette.
My cigar had gone out, as I sat musing, and I relighted it and resumed my reading of the type-written notes, lazily, even a trifle sceptically, for all the evidence that she had been able to collect to substantiate her theory of the existence of the ux was not half as important as the evidence I was to produce in the shape of that enormous green feather.
I came to the last paragraph, smoking serenely, and leaning back comfortably, one leg crossed over the other. Then, suddenly, my attention became riveted on the words under my eyes. Could I have read them aright? Could I believe what I read in ever-growing astonishment which culminated in an excitement that stirred the very hair on my head?
"The ux exists. There is no longer room for doubt. Ocular proof I can now offer in the shape of _five living eggs_ of this gigantic bird. All measures have been taken to hatch these eggs; they are now in the vast incubator. It is my plan to have them hatch, one by one, under the very eyes of the International Congress. It will be the greatest triumph that science has witnessed since the discovery of the New World.
[Signed] "SUSANNE D"ALZETTE."
"Either," I cried out, in uncontrollable excitement--"either that girl is mad or she is the cleverest woman on earth."
After a moment I added:
"In either event I am going to marry her."
XI
That evening, a few minutes before nine o"clock, I descended from a cab in front of No. 8 Rue d"Alouette, and was ushered into a pretty reception-room by an irreproachable servant, who disappeared directly with my card.
In a few moments the young Countess came in, exquisite in her silvery dinner-gown, eyes bright, white arms extended in a charming, impulsive welcome. The touch of her silky fingers thrilled me; I was dumb under the enchantment of her beauty; and I think she understood my silence, for her blue eyes became troubled and the happy parting of her lips changed to a pensive curve.
Presently I began to tell her about my bronzed-green feather; at my first word she looked up brightly, almost gratefully, I fancied; and in another moment we were deep in eager discussion of the subject which had first drawn us together.
What evidence I possessed to sustain our theory concerning the existence of the ux I hastened to reveal; then, heart beating excitedly, I asked her about the eggs and where they were at present, and whether she believed it possible to bring them to Paris--all these questions in the same breath--which brought a happy light into her eyes and a delicious ripple of laughter to her lips.
"Why, of course it is possible to bring the eggs here," she cried. "Am I sure? Parbleu! The eggs are already here, monsieur!"
"Here!" I exclaimed. "In Paris?"
"In Paris? Mais oui; and in my own house--_this very house_, monsieur.
Come, you shall behold them with your own eyes!"
Her eyes were brilliant with excitement; impulsively she stretched out her rosy hand. I took it; and she led me quickly back through the drawing-room, through the dining-room, across the butler"s pantry, and into a long, dark hallway. We were almost running now--I keeping tight hold of her soft little hand, she, raising her gown a trifle, hurrying down the hallway, silken petticoats rustling like a silk banner in the wind. A turn to the right brought us to the cellar-stairs; down we hastened, and then across the cemented floor towards a long, gla.s.s-fronted shelf, pierced with steam-pipes.
"A match," she whispered, breathlessly.
I struck a wax match and touched it to the gas-burner overhead.
Never, never can I forget what that flood of gas-light revealed. In a row stood five large, gla.s.s-mounted incubators; behind the gla.s.s doors lay, in dormant majesty, five enormous eggs. The eggs were pale-green--lighter, somewhat, than robins" eggs, but not as pale as herons" eggs. Each egg appeared to be larger than a large hogs-head, and was partly embedded in bales of cotton-wool.
Five little silver thermometers inside the gla.s.s doors indicated a temperature of 95 Fahrenheit. I noticed that there was an automatic arrangement connected with the pipes which regulated the temperature.
I was too deeply moved for words. Speech seemed superfluous as we stood there, hand in hand, contemplating those gigantic, pale-green eggs.