Then they retreated within and shut the door noiselessly; but they could not lock or fasten it.
"I can see that part of the Garden from a window in the Library," said Christine. "He walks there every morning and every evening. He is always alone. He always hangs his head, and he always looks fit to cry for trouble. What is the good of being Arch Physician, if you cannot have things done as you want?"
"My dear," said Mildred, "I am afraid you do not quite understand. In the old days—I mean not quite the dear old days, but in the time when people still discussed things and we had not been robbed of memory and of understanding—it was very well known that the Arch Physician was out-voted in the College by Grout and his Party."
"By Doctor Grout?"
"My dear, Grout was never a Doctor. He only calls himself Doctor. I remember when Grout was an ignorant man taken into Professor Linister's Laboratory to wash up the pots and bottles. He was thin, just as he is now—a short, dark, and sour-faced man, with bright eyes. Oh, a clever man, I dare say, but ignorant, and full of hatred for the class of culture and refinement. It was Grout who led the Party which took away land and wealth from individuals and transferred all to the State. It was Grout who ordered the Massacre of the Old. It was Grout who invented the horrible cruelty of the Common Dress. It was Grout who made the College what it is—not what it was meant to be. It was originally the Guardian of Life and Health. It has become the Tyrant of the People. It has destroyed everything—everything that makes life possible—and it tells the People to be happy because they live. It is Grout—Grout!—who has done this. Not the Arch Physician. Not Harry Linister."
"Why do you say 'Harry Linister,' Mildred?"
"My dear, I think that of all women living I have the greatest cause to hate the Great Discovery, because it robbed me of my lover."
"Tell me how, dear."
"I told you, Christine, that the revival of the Past was the revival of sorrows that I would never again forget. Listen, then, and I will tell you what they were. When the Great Discovery was announced, Harry Linister was already a man well known in Science, Christine; but he was also well known in Society as well. Science did not prevent him from falling in love. And he fell in love with—me. Yes—with me. We met that fatal evening at the Royal Institution, and we arranged, before the Lecture, where we should meet after the Lecture. My dear, I knew very well what he was going to say; and—oh, my poor heart!—how happy I was to think of it! There was nobody in London more clever, more handsome, and more promising than Harry. He was rich, if that mattered anything to me; he was already a Fellow of the Royal Society, for some great discoveries he had made; everybody said that a splendid career was before him—and he loved me, Christine."
"Well?"