Josephine turned pale with self-control; she glared at a placid lion with such fury that, after a moment or two, the beast got up and walked into the den behind his cage.
“Josephine, please be reasonable. Either you are in love with me or else you are not. If you are in love with me it can’t cost you much to sacrifice other people to me. Since you won’t do that it follows that you are not in love with me, and in that case you only keep me hanging round you because it pleases your vanity. I wish you would choose someone else for that sort of thing. I don’t like it, and any of your father’s old friends would do better than me.”
“How dare you talk to me about my father’s old friends?” said Josephine. They were silent. Presently Cromartie said, “For the last time, Josephine, will you marry me, and be damned to your relations?”
“No! You silly savage!” said Josephine. “No, you wild beast. Can’t you understand that one doesn’t treat people like that? It is simply wasting my breath to talk. I’ve explained a hundred times I am not going to make father miserable. I am not going to be cut off with a shilling and become dependent on you when you haven’t enough money to live on yourself, to satisfy your vanity. My vanity, do you think having you in love with me pleases my vanity? I might as well have a baboon or a bear. You are Tarzan of the Apes; you ought to be shut up in the Zoo. The collection here is incomplete without you. You are a survival—atavism at its worst. Don’t ask me why I fell in love with you—I did, but I cannot marry Tarzan of the Apes, I’m not romantic enough. I see, too, that you do believe what you have been saying. You do think mankind is your enemy. I can assure you that if mankind thinks of you, it thinks you are the missing link. You ought to be shut up and exhibited here in the Zoo—I’ve told you once and now I tell you again—with the gorilla on one side and the chimpanzee on the other. Science would gain a lot.”
“Well, I will be. I am sure you are quite right. I’ll make arrangements to be exhibited,” said Cromartie. “I’m very grateful to you for having told me the truth about myself.” Then he took off his hat and said “Good-bye,” and giving a quick little nod he walked away.
“Miserable baboon,” muttered Josephine, and she hurried out through the swing doors.
They were both of them in a rage, but John Cromartie was in such a desperate rage that he did not know he was angry, he only thought that he was very miserable and unhappy. Josephine, on the other hand, was elated. She would have enjoyed slashing at Cromartie with a whip.
That evening Cromartie could not keep still. When the chairs presumed to stand in his path he knocked them over, but he soon found that merely upsetting furniture was not enough to restore his peace of mind. It was then that Mr. Cromartie made a singular determination—one which you may swear no other man in like circumstances would ever have arrived at.
It was somehow or other to get himself exhibited in the Zoo, as if he were part of the menagerie.
It may be that a strange predilection which he had for keeping his word is enough to account for this. But it will always be found that many impulses are entirely whimsical and not to be accounted for by reason. And this man was both proud and obstinate, so that when he had decided upon a thing in passion he would brave it out so far that he could no longer withdraw from it.