I handed this letter to Gwen, and, after she had read it through very carefully, she questioned me about this new theory of Maitland's.I went through the form of telling her, after the usual practice of amiable men discoursing to women, feeling sure she would be no wiser when I had finished, and was dumfounded when she replied: "It looks very reasonable.Professor Bjerknes, if I remember the name, has produced all the phenomena of magnetic attraction, repulsion, and polarisation, by air vibrations corresponding, I suppose, to certain fixed musical notes.Why might not something similar to this be true of atomic, as well as of larger, bodies?"If the roof of my house had fallen in, I should not have been moresurprised than at this quiet remark.How many times had I said: "You can always count on a young woman, however much she flutter over the surface of things, being ignorant of all the great underlying verities of existence"? I promptly decided, on all future occasions, to add to that - " When not brought up by her father." I was convinced that of the attainments of a girl educated by her father absolutely nothing could be definitely predicted.
We had a short note from Maitland written at Trieste.He excused its brevity by saying he had been obliged to travel night and day in order to reach this port in time to catch the Austrian Lloyd steamer Helois, bound for Aden, Bombay, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong.From Aden I received the following:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:
We have just been through the Red Sea, and I know now the real origin of the Calvinistic hell.Imagine it! A cloudless sky; the sun beating down with an intolerable fierceness; not a breath stirring, and the thermometer registering 120 degrees F.in the shade! It seemed as though reason must desert us.The constant motion of the punkas in the saloons, and an unlimited supply of ice-water was all that saved us.Sleep was hardly to be thought of, for at no time during the night did the mercury drop below 100=B0 F.Apart from the oppressive heat referred to, the entire voyage has been exceedingly pleasant.I have not solved the atomic-pitch problems, as attendance at meals has left me little time for anything else.They seem to eat all the time on these boats.At 8 A.M.coffee and bread; at ten a hearty breakfast of meat, eggs, curry and rice, vegetables and fruit; at 1 P.M.a luncheon, called "tiffin," of cold meats, bread and butter, potatoes, and tea; at five o'clock a regular dinner of soups, meats with relishes, farinaceous dishes, dessert, fruits, and coffee, and lastly, at 8 P.M., the evening meal of tea, bread and butter, and other light dishes.Five meals a day, and there are some English people who fill up the gaps between them by constantly munching nuts and sweets!Verily, if specialisation of function means anything, some of these people will soon become huge gastric balloons with a little wart on top representing the atrophied brain structure.They run their engines of digestion whollyon the high-pressure system.
After eight days' voyage on the Indian Ocean we shall be in Bombay.I must close now, for there is really nothing to say, and, besides, I am wanted on deck.My engagement is with a Rev.Mr.Barrows, who is bound as missionary to Hong Kong.This worthy Methodist gentleman is very much exercised because I insist that potentiality is necessity and rebut his arguments on free-will.He got quite excited yesterday, and said to me severely: "Do you mean to say, young man, that I can't do as I please?" I must say I don't think his warmth was much allayed by my replying: "I certainly mean to say you can't please as you please.You may eat sugar because you prefer it to vinegar, but you can't prefer it just because you will to do so." He has probably got some new arguments now and is anxious to try their effect, so, with kind regards to Miss Darrow - I trust she is well - I remain, Cordially your friend, GEORGE MAITLAND.
P.S.(Like a woman I always write a postscript.) You shall hear again from me as soon as I reach Bombay.
This last promise was religiously kept, though his letter was short and merely announced his safe arrival early that morning.He closed by saying: "I have not yet breakfasted, preferring to do so on land, and I feel that I can do justice to whatever is set before me.I intend, as soon as I have taken the edge off my appetite, to set out immediately for Malabar Hill, as I believe that to be our proper starting-point.I inclose a little sketch I made of Bombay as we came up its harbour, thinking it may interest Miss Darrow.Kindly give it to her with my regards.You will note that there are two tongues of land in the picture.On the eastern side is the suburb of Calaba, and on the western our Malabar Hill.Good-bye until I have something of interest to report."I gave the sketch to Gwen, and she seemed greatly pleased with it."Are you aware," she said to me that Mr.Maitland draws with rareprecision?"
"I am fully persuaded," I rejoined, "that he does not do anything which he cannot do well.""I believe there is nothing," she continued, "which so conduces to thehabit of thoroughness as the experiments of chemistry.When one learns that even a grain of dust will, in some cases, vitiate everything, he acquires a new conception of the term 'clean' and is likely to be thorough in washing his apparatus.From this the habit grows upon him and widens its application until it embraces all his actions."This remark did not surprise me as it would have a few weeks before, for I had come to learn that Gwen was liable at any time to suddenly evince a very unfeminine depth of observation and firmness of philosophical grasp.
Maitland had been gone just six weeks to a day when we received from him the first news having any particular bearing upon the matter which had taken him abroad.I give this communication in his own words, omitting only a few personal observations which I do not feel justified in disclosing, and which, moreover, are not necessary to the completeness of this narrative:
MY DEAR DOCTOR:
