It was indeed a fine specimen, fanning out like the lily it was named for. 'Oh no, sir, it's yours,' Mary said. 'You found it. I could never take it from you.'
Colonel Birch took her hand, laid the crinoid in it and closed her fingers around it.
'I insist, Mary.' He held his hand over her fist and looked at her. 'Did you know crinoids are not plants as they appear, but creatures?'
'Really, sir?' Mary was staring into his eyes. Of course she knew about crinoids.
I had taught her.
I stepped forward. 'Colonel Birch, I must ask you to show proper respect or I shall require that you leave us.'
Colonel Birch dropped his hand. 'My apologies, Miss Philpot. The discovery of fossils excites me in ways I find hard to control.'
'Control it you must, sir, or you will lose the privileges you seek.'
He nodded and fell back to a respectful distance. We walked in silence for a time.
But Colonel Birch could not be quiet for long, and soon he and Mary were lagging behind while he asked her about the fossils she preferred, her method of hunting, even her thoughts on what the ichthyosaurus was. 'I don't know, sir,' she said of her most spectacular find. 'It seems the ichie's got a bit of crocodile in it, some lizard, some fish.
And a bit of something all its own. That's what's difficult, that bit. How it fits in.'
'Oh, I expect your ichthyosaurus has a place in Aristotle's Great Chain of Being,'
Colonel Birch said.
'What's that, sir?'
I tutted. She didn't need him to explain it, for I had described the theory to Mary myself. She was flirting with him. Of course he loved telling her what he knew. Men do.
'The Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that all creatures could be placed along a scale, from the lowest plants up to the perfection that is man, in a chain of creation. So your ichthyosaurus may fall between a lizard and a crocodile in the chain, for instance.'
'That is very interesting, sir.' Mary paused. 'But that don't explain about the bit of the ichie that's like nothing else, that don't fit in with the categories. Where does that fit in the chain, if it's different from everything else?'
Colonel Birch suddenly stopped, squatted and picked up a stone. 'Is this--Oh, no, it's not. My mistake.' He threw the stone into the water.
I smiled. He might dazzle with his handsome head of hair, but his grasp of knowledge was superficial, and Mary had picked it apart.
'What about you, Miss Philpot? What do you like to collect?' In two lively steps Colonel Birch had caught up with me, escaping Mary's awkward question. I did not want his attention, for I was not sure I could bear it, but I could not be impolite.
'Fish,' I answered as briefly as I could.
'Fish?'
Though I did not want to converse with him, I could not help showing off a bit of my knowledge. 'Primarily
'Miss Philpot has a big collection of fossil fish at her home,' Mary put in. 'People come and look all the time, don't they, Miss Elizabeth?'
'Really? Fascinating,' Colonel Birch murmured. 'I shall be sure to visit as well and see your fish.'
He was careful, so I could never accuse him of rudeness, but his tone bore a trace of sarcasm. He preferred the bold ichthyosaurus to the quiet fish. But then, most do. They do not understand that the clear shape and texture of a fish, with its overlapping scales, its dimpled skin, and its shapely fins, all make up a specimen of great beauty-- beautiful because it is plain and definite. With his gleaming buttons and thrusting hair, Colonel Birch could never comprehend such subtlety.
