uldn't
understand it at first. Then I saw that the curled pretzel, lying there
on the floor, was very like a little coiled-up snake. The monkey had
never seen a snake, but it was in his blood to be afraid of one.
That incident changed my whole life for me. Up to that evening, I had
intended to be a lawyer."

Theron did not feel sure that he had understood the point of the
anecdote. He looked now, without much interest, at some dark little
tanks containing thick water, a row of small glass cases with adders and
other lesser reptiles inside, and a general collection of boxes, jars,
and similar receptacles connected with the doctor's pursuits. Further
on was a smaller chamber, with a big empty furnace, and shelves bearing
bottles and apparatus like a drugstore.

It was pleasanter in the conservatory--a low, spacious structure with
broad pathways between the plants, and an awning over the sunny side
of the roof. The plants were mostly orchids, he learned. He had read
of them, but never seen any before. No doubt they were curious; but he
discovered nothing to justify the great fuss made about them. The heat
grew oppressive inside, and he was glad to emerge into the garden. He
paused under the grateful shade of a vine-clad trellis, took off his
hat, and looked about him with a sigh of relief. Everything seemed
old-fashioned and natural and delightfully free from pretence in the
big, overgrown field of flowers and shrubs.

Theron recalled with some surprise Celia's indictment of the doctor as a
man with no poetry in his soul. "You must be extremely fond of flowers,"
he remarked.

Dr. Ledsmar shrugged his well shoulder. "They have their points," he
said briefly. "These are all dioecious here. Over beyond are monoecious
species. My work is to test the probabilities for or against Darwin's
theory that hermaphroditism in plants is a late by-product of these
earlier forms."

"And is his theory right?" asked Mr. Ware, with a polite show of
interest.

"We may know in the course of three or four hundred years," replied
Ledsmar. He looked up into his guest's face with a quizzical half-smile.
"That is a very brief period for observation when such a complicated
question as sex is involved," he added. "We have been studying the
female of our own species for some hundreds of thousands of years, and
we haven't arrived at the most elementary rules governing her actions."

They had moved along to a bed of tall plants, the more forwar