«No, no,» whispered his host. «I have kept our little secret. A gentleman from Africa, I said — who has genius.»
There was no time for more. Mrs. Grantly was descending the stairs. She was tall, with pale hair caught up in an unstudied knot behind, and a full-skirted gown which was artistic but not unfashionable.
«This is Ernest Simpson,» said her husband. «My dear, Mr. Simpson has written a book which is going to create more than a passing stir. Unfortunately he has lost the manuscript, but (what do you think?) he has consented to stay with us while he rewrites it. He has it all in his head.»
«How perfectly delightful!» cried Mrs. Grantly. «We live terribly simply here, I'm afraid, but at least you will be quiet. Will you wash your hands? There is a little supper waiting for us in the dining-room.»
The gorilla, not accustomed to being treated with so much consideration, took refuge in an almost sullen silence. During the meal he spoke mostly in monosyllables, and devoured a prodigious number of bananas, and his hostess, with teeth and eyes respectively.
The young couple were as delighted by their visitor as children with a new toy. «He is unquestionably dynamic, original, and full of that true simplicity which is perhaps the clearest hall-mark of genius,» said the young man when they were in bed together. «Did you notice him with the bananas?»
Mrs. Grantly folded her husband in her arms, which were delightfully long and round. «It will be wonderful,» she said. «How I look forward to the day when both your books are published! He must meet the Booles and the Terrys. What discussions you will have! How delightful life is, to those who care for art!» They gave each other a score of kisses, talked of the days when first they had met, and fell happily asleep.
In the morning there was a fine breakfast, with fruit juice, cereals, bacon and mushrooms, and the morning papers. The gorilla was shown his little study; he tried the chairs and the sofa, and looked at himself in the glass.
«Do you think you will be happy here?» asked Mr. Grantly very anxiously. «Is the room conducive to the right mood, do you think? There are cigarettes in that box; there's a lavatory across the landing. If you'd care to try a pipe, I have a tobacco jar I'll send up here. What about the desk? Is there everything on it that you'll require?»
«I shall manage. I shall manage,» said the gorilla, still looking at himself in the glass.
«If there's anything you want, don't hesitate to ring that bell,» said his host. «I've told the maids that you are now one of the family. I'm in the front room on the floor below if you want me. Well, I suppose you are burning to get to work. Till lunchtime, then!» And with that he took his leave of the gorilla, who continued to stare at himself in the glass.
When he was tired of this, which was not for some time, he ate a few of the cigarettes, opened all the drawers, had a look up the chimney, estimated the value of the furniture, exposed his teeth very abominably, scratched, and finally flung himself on the sofa and began to make his plans.
He was of that nature which sets down every disinterested civility as a sign of weakness. Moreover, he regarded his host as a ham novelist as well as a milksop, for he had not heard a single word about percentages since he entered the house. «A washout! A highbrow!» he said. «A guy like that giving the handout to a guy like me, eh? We'll soon alter that. The question is, how?»
This gorilla wanted suits of a very light grey, pearl tie-pins, a noticeable automobile, blondes, and the society of the boys. Nevertheless, his vanity itself was greedy, and snatched at every crumb; he was unable to resist the young man's enthusiasm for his nonexistent novel, and instead of seeking his fortune as a heavyweight pug, he convinced himself in good earnest that he was a writer, unjustly hindered by the patronage and fussing of a bloodsucking so-called intellectual. He turned the pages of half the books in the bookcase to see the sort of thing he should do, but found it rather hard to make a start. «This goddam place stifles me,» he said.
«What's your plot like?» said he to the young man, one day soon afterwards, when they were sitting in the shade of the fig tree.
Grantly was good enough to recite the whole of his plot. «It sounds very trifling,» he said, «but of course a lot depends on the style.»
«Style? Style, the hell!» observed the gorilla with a toothy sneer.
«I thought you'd say that!» cried his entertainer. «No doubt you have all the vitality that I so consciously lack. I imagine your work as being very close to the mainsprings of life, the sultry passions, the crude lusts, the vital urges, the stark, the raw, the dynamic, the essentially fecund and primitive.»
«That's it,» said the gorilla.
«The sentence,» continued the rhapsodist, «short to the point of curtness, attuned by a self-concealing art to the grunts, groans, and screams of women with great primeval paps, and men —»
«Sure,» said the gorilla.
«They knock each other down,» went on his admirer. «As they taste the salt blood flowing over their lips, or see the female form suddenly grow tender under the influence of innumerable upper-cuts, right hooks, straight lefts, they become aware of another emotion —»
«Yes!» cried the gorilla with enthusiasm.
«And with a cry that is half a sob—»
«Attaboy!» cried the gorilla.
«They leap, clutch, grapple, and in an ecstasy that is half sheer bursting, burning, grinding, soul-shattering pain —»
The gorilla, unable to contain himself any longer, bit through the best branch of Mr. Grantly's fig tree. «You said it! That's my book, sir!» said he, with a mouthful of splinters.
I hate to have to record it: this gorilla then rushed into the house and seized his hostess in a grip of iron. «I'm in a creative mood,» he muttered thickly.
Mrs. Grantly was not altogether free from hero worship. She had taken her husband's word for it that the gorilla was a genius of the fiercest description. She admired both his complexion and his eyes, and she, too, observed that his grip was of iron.
At the same time, she was a young woman of exquisite refinement. «I can't help thinking of Dennis,» said she. «I should hate to hurt him.»
«Yeah?» cried the ill-bred anthropoid. «That poor fish? That ham writer? That bum artist? Don't you worry about him. I'll beat him up, baby! I'll —»
Mrs. Grantly interrupted him with some dignity. She was one of those truly noble women who would never dream of betraying their husbands, except at the bidding of a genuine passion, and with expressions of the most tender esteem.
«Let me go, Ernest,» she said, with such an air as compelled the vain ape to obey her. This ape, like all vulgarians, was very sensitive to any hint that he appeared low. «You do not raise yourself in my opinion by disparaging Dennis,» she continued. «It merely shows you are lacking in judgment, not only of men but of women.»
«Aw, cut it out, Joanna,» begged the humiliated gorilla. «See here: I only forgot myself. You know what we geniuses are!»
«If you were not a genius,» said Joanna, «I should have you turned out of the house. As it is — you shall have another chance.»
The gorilla had not the spirit to interpret these last words as liberally as some of us might. Perhaps it was because he had lived so long behind bars, but they fell upon his ear as upon that of some brutalized coward snuffling in the dock. The timid husky saw no invitation in Mrs. Grantly's smile, and he was panic-stricken at the thought of losing his snug quarters.
«Say, you won't split on me, sister?» he muttered.
«No, no,» said Mrs. Grantly. «One takes the commonsense view of these trifles. But you must behave more nicely in future.»
