that there is no
longer any theory, but only one great, glorious fact. I do admire," he
exclaimed, swerving suddenly, "the imagination of those old Greeks, with
their beautiful, half-divine personifications of the Spirits of Air and
Earth and Sea! But their imagination never conceived a goddess that
embodied them all!"

"I have often thought, Julius," said Lefevre, "that you must be some
such embodiment yourself; for you are not quite human, you know."

The doctor said that with a clear recollection of his mother's request.
He hoped that his friend would take the cue, and tell him something of
his family. Julius, however, said nothing but "Indeed." Lefevre then
tried to tempt him into confession by talking about his own father and
mother, and by relating how the French name "Lefevre" came to be
domiciled in England; but Julius ignored the temptation, and dismissed
the question in an eloquent flourish.

"What does a man want with a family and a name? They only tie him to the
earth, as Gulliver was tied by the people of Lilliput. We have life and
health,--_if_ we have them,--and it is only veiled prurience to inquire
whence we got them. A man can't help having a father and a mother, I
suppose; but he need not be always reminding himself of the fact: no
other creature on earth does. For myself, I wish I were like that
extraordinary person, Melchizedek, without father and without mother,
without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life."

In a little while the friends parted. Lefevre said he had work to do,
but he did not anticipate such work as he had to turn to that night.
Though the doctor was a bachelor, he had a professional residence apart
from his mother and sister. They lived in a small house in Curzon
Street; he dwelt in Savile Row. Savile Row was a place of consequence
long before Regent Street was thought of, but now they are few who know
of its existence. Fashion ignores it. It is tenanted by small clubs,
learned societies, and doctors. It slumbers in genteel decorum, with its
back to the garish modern thoroughfare. It is always quiet, but by nine
o'clock of a dark evening it is deserted. When Dr Lefevre, therefore,
stepped out of his hired hansom, and prepared to put his latch-key in
his own door, he was arrested by a hoarse-voiced hawker of evening news
bursting in upon the repose of the Row with a continuous roar of
"Special--Mystery--Paper--Railway--Special--Brighton--Paper--Victoria
--S