I
For many months after that long afternoon in the library, Challis was affected with a fever of restlessness, and his work on the book stood still. He was in Rome during May, and in June he was seized by a sudden whim and went to China by the Trans-Siberian railway. Lewes did not accompany him. Challis preferred, one imagines, to have no intercourse with Lewes while the memory of certain pronouncements was still fresh. He might have been tempted to discuss that interview, and if, as was practically certain, Lewes attempted to pour contempt on the whole affair, Challis might have been drawn into a defence which would have revived many memories he wished to obliterate.
He came back to London in September—he made the return journey by steamer—and found his secretary still working at the monograph on the primitive peoples of Melanesia.
Lewes had spent the whole summer in Challis’s town house in Eaton Square, whither all the material had been removed two days after that momentous afternoon in the library of Challis Court.
“I have been wanting your help badly for some time, sir,” Lewes said on the evening of Challis’s return. “Are you proposing to take up the work again? If not....” Gregory Lewes thought he was wasting valuable time.
“Yes, yes, of course; I am ready to begin again now, if you care to go on with me,” said Challis. He talked for a few minutes of the book without any great show of interest. Presently they came to a pause, and Lewes suggested that he should give some account of how his time had been spent.
“To-morrow,” replied Challis, “to-morrow will be time enough. I shall settle down again in a few days.” He hesitated a moment, and then said: “Any news from Chilborough?”
“N-no, I don’t think so,” returned Lewes. He was occupied with his own interests; he doubted Challis’s intention to continue his work on the book—the announcement had been so half-hearted.
“What about that child?” asked Challis.
“That child?” Lewes appeared to have forgotten the existence of Victor Stott.
“That abnormal child of Stott’s?” prompted Challis.
“Oh! Of course, yes. I believe he still goes nearly every day to the library. I have been down there two or three times, and found him reading. He has learned the use of the index-catalogue. He can get any book he wants. He uses the steps.”
“Do you know what he reads?”
“No; I can’t say I do.”
“What do you think will become of him?”
“Oh! these infant prodigies, you know,” said Lewes with a large air of authority, “they all go the same way. Most of them die young, of course, the others develop into ordinary commonplace men rather under than over the normal ability. After all, it is what one would expect. Nature always maintains her average by some means or another. If a child like this with his abnormal memory were to go on developing, there would be no place for him in the world’s economy. The idea is inconceivable.”
“Quite, quite,” murmured Challis, and after a short silence he added: “You think he will deteriorate, that his faculties will decay prematurely?”
“I should say there could be no doubt of it,” replied Lewes.
“Ah! well. I’ll go down and have a look at him, one day next week,” said Challis; but he did not go till the middle of October.
The direct cause of his going was a letter from Crashaw, who offered to come up to town, as the matter was one of “really peculiar urgency.”
“I wonder if young Stott has been blaspheming again,” Challis remarked to Lewes. “Wire the man that I’ll go down and see him this afternoon. I shall motor. Say I’ll be at Stoke about half-past three.”