ooking at it
in a waiting, second-counting, but deeply grateful kind of way. And the
instant it closed they flung their arms about each other's necks, and
there, heart to heart and lip to lip--

"Oh, my God, she's kissing it!"

Nobody heard this remark, because Hawkins, who bred it, only thought it,
he didn't utter it. He had turned, the moment he had closed the door,
and had pushed it open a little, intending to re-enter and ask what
ill-advised thing he had done or said, and apologize for it. But he
didn't re-enter; he staggered off stunned, terrified, distressed.

CHAPTER XXII.

Five minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowed within
the circle of his arms, on the table--final attitude of grief and despair.
His tears were flowing fast, and now and then a sob broke upon the
stillness. Presently he said:

"I knew her when she was a little child and used to climb about my knees;
I love her as I love my own, and now--oh, poor thing, poor thing, I
cannot bear it!--she's gone and lost her heart to this mangy
materializee! Why didn't we see that that might happen? But how could
we? Nobody could; nobody could ever have dreamed of such a thing. You
couldn't expect a person would fall in love with a wax-work. And this
one doesn't even amount to that."

He went on grieving to himself, and now and then giving voice to his
lamentations.

"It's done, oh, it's done, and there's no help for it, no undoing the
miserable business. If I had the nerve, I would kill it. But that
wouldn't do any good. She loves it; she thinks it's genuine and
authentic. If she lost it she would grieve for it just as she would for
a real person. And who's to break it to the family! Not I--I'll die
first. Sellers is the best human being I ever knew and I wouldn't any
more think of--oh, dear, why it'll break his heart when he finds it out.
And Polly's too. This comes of meddling with such infernal matters!
But for this, the creature would still be roasting in Sheol where it
belongs. How is it that these people don't smell the brimstone?
Sometimes I can't come into the same room with him without nearly
suffocating."

After a while he broke out again:

"Well, there's one thing, sure. The materializing has got to stop right
where it is. If she's got to marry a spectre, let her marry a decent one
out of the Middle Ages, like this one--not a cowboy and a thief such as
this protoplasmic tadpole's going to tur