Thyrsis was half dazed. “I don’t believe it!” he cried; whereat his mother wrung her hands.
“Not believe it!” she exclaimed. “Why, the paper even gives the price he paid for the place!”
So Thyrsis took the article and went to see Henry Darrell again; and there followed one of the most painful experiences of his life.
He found his friend like a man blasted by a stroke of lightning. His very physical appearance was altered; his voice shook and his eyes were wild, and he paced the room, his whole aspect one cry of agony.
He pointed Thyrsis to a lot of clippings that lay upon the table—the first editorial comments upon this new pronouncement. There was one from an evening paper, which had close upon a million circulation, and had devoted its whole editorial page to a scathing denunciation, in which it was declared that “Prof. Darrell’s morality is that of the higher apes.”
“Think of it!” the man cried. “And the thing will go from one end of the country to the other!”
“But”—gasped Thyrsis, bewildered—“then it is not true?”
“True?” cried Darrell. “True? How can you ask me?”
“But—the colony! What is it to be?”
“There is not going to be any colony. I never dreamed of such a thing!”