Darwin froze.
He instinctively raised his hand to touch his forehead, his fingertips lingering near the hairline for a moment, as if trying to press the words he had just blurted out back into his mind.
"It's nothing." Darwin forced a smile, but his tone became noticeably cautious: "Just some... thoughts on classification. You know, reclassifying species to see if there's some sort of continuity between them, that's all."
However, his friends were clearly not buying Darwin's evasion.
After all, in private conversations, Darwin had more or less hinted to his friends about his doubts regarding creationism.
Although his friends were quite interested in Darwin's new theory, Great Dumas and Dickens even had the urge to get to the bottom of it, most of them advised Darwin after the discussion not to put forth this new theory until he had decisive evidence.
