The Place of the Lion Read Free Page A

raise him. Once lifted, he could be carried easily enough along the front of the house, but when they tried to turn the corner they found an unplaceable difficulty in doing so. It wasn’t weight; it wasn’t wind; it wasn’t darkness; it was just that when they had all moved they seemed to be where they were before. Anthony, being in front, realised that something had gone wrong, and without being clear whether he were speaking to the body or the bearers, to himself or his friend, said sharply and commandingly: “O come on !” The general effort that succeeded took them round, and so at last they reached the back door, where the leader and a disturbed old woman whom Anthony assumed to be the housekeeper were waiting.
    â€œUpstairs,” she said, “to his own bedroom. Look, I’ll show you. Dear, dear. O do be careful”—and so on till at last Berringer was laid on his bed, and, still under the directions of the housekeeper, undressed and got into it.
    â€œI’ve telephoned to a doctor,” the leader said to Anthony, who had withdrawn from the undressing process. “It’s very curious: his breathing’s normal; his heart seems all right. Shock, I suppose. If he saw that damned thing—— You couldn’t see what happened?”
    â€œNot very well,” said Anthony. “We saw him fall, and—and—— It was a lioness that got away, wasn’t it? Not a lion?”
    The other looked at him suspiciously. “Of course it wasn’t a lion,” he said. “There’s been no lion in these parts that I ever heard of, and only one lioness, and there won’t be that much longer. Damned slinking brute! What d’ye mean—lion?”
    â€œNo,” said Anthony, “quite. Of course, if there wasn’t a lion—I mean—— O well, I mean there wasn’t if there wasn’t, was there?”
    The face of the other darkened. “I daresay it all seems very funny to you gentlemen,” he said. “A great joke, no doubt. But if that’s what you think’s a joke——”
    â€œNo, no,” Anthony said hastily. “I wasn’t joking. Only——” He gave it up; it would have sounded too silly. After all, if they were looking for a lioness and found a lion … well, if they were looking for the lioness properly , it presumably wouldn’t make much difference. Besides, anyhow, it couldn’t have been a lion. Not unless there were two menageries and two——“O God, what a day!” Anthony sighed; and turned to Quentin.
    â€œThe high road, I think,” he said. “And any kind of bus anywhere, don’t you? We’re simply in the way here. But, damn it!” he added to himself, “it was a lion.”

Chapter Two
    THE EIDOLA AND THE ANGELI
    Tamaris Tighe had had a bad night. The thunder had kept her awake, and she particularly needed sleep just now, in order to be quite fresh every day to cope with her thesis about Pythagorean Influences on Abelard . There were moments when she almost wished she had not picked anyone quite so remote as Abelard; only all the later schoolmen had been done to death by other writers, whereas Abelard seemed—so far as theses on Pythagorean Influences went—to have been left to her to do to death. But this tracing of thought between the two humanistic thinkers was a business for which she needed a particularly clear head. She had so far a list of eighteen close identifications, twenty-three cases of probable traditional views, and eighty-five less distinct relationships. And then there had been that letter to the Journal of Classical Studies challenging a word in a new translation of Aristotle. She had been a little nervous about sending it. After all, she was more concerned about her doctorate of philosophy, for which the thesis was meant, than for the accuracy of the translation of Aristotle, and it would be