The conversation dropped, and they sat for a long time listening to the rattle and roar of the train. Mona did not like it. Somehow it forced her to remember that there was no necessary connection between Lucy's condition and the bright October weather.'
"A penny for your thoughts, Doris," she cried.
Doris's large grey eyes were sparkling.
"I was wondering," she said, "whether that delicious seal is still at the Zoo. Do you know?"
"I don't; you might as well ask me whether Carolus Rex is still brandishing his own death-warrant at Madame Tussaud's."
"Picture mentioning the two places on the same day!"
"I do it because they lie side by side in the fairy memory palace of childhood. Neither has any existence for me apart from that."
"And you a student of natural history! I should have thought that most of your spare time would have been spent at the Zoological Gardens."
"Ars longa!—but you are perfectly right. The Huxley of the next generation, instead of directing us to scalpel and dissecting-board, will tell us to forego the use of those, till we have studied the build and movements and habits of the animals in life. I quite agree with you that it is far better to know and love the creatures as you do, than to investigate personally the principal variations of the ground-plan of the vascular system, as I do."
"I don't see why we should not combine the two."