HE slept uneasily, and woke abruptly to a room flooded with sunlight, and an unaccountable sense of something gone wrong. He dressed hurriedly, and had opened his door, when he heard his name called from below. It was Annot, he knew, but her voice was strange, terrified—a helpless cry new to her accustomed poise. “Anthony! Anthony!” she called from the conservatory.

Rufus Hardinge, who, it was evident from his clothes had not been in bed, was standing rigidly before the row of plants upon whose flowering they had so intently waited. And, in a rapid glance, Anthony saw that they had blossomed in delicate, parti-colored petals—some pale lavender, others deep purple, still others reddish white. Annoys yellow wrap was thrown carelessly about her nightgown, her feet were bare, and her hair hung in a tangle about her blanched face.

When Anthony entered she clung to his arm, and he saw that she was trembling violently. For a tense moment they were silent: the sun streamed over the mathematical plant ranks and lit the white or blue tickets tied to their stems; a bubbling chorus of birds filled the world of leaves without. “It's all wrong,” she sobbed.

“So!” the biologist finally said with a wry smile; “you see that I have not solved the riddle of the universe; inheritance in pure line is not explicated.... A life of labor as void as any prostitute's; not a single fact, not a supposition warranted, not a foot advanced.”

With a sudden and violent movement for which they were entirely unprepared he swept the row of plants crashing upon the floor; where, in a scattered heap of brown loam, broken pottery, smeared bloom, their tenuous, pallid roots quivered in air. “Games with plants and animals and bones for elderly children; riddles without answer... blind ways.” His expression grew furtive, cunning. “I have been trifled with,” he declared, “I have been deliberately misled; but I desire to say that I see through—through Him: I comprehend His little joke. It's in bad taste... to leave a soul in the dark, blundering about in the cellar with the table spread above. But in the end I was not completely bamboozled. He was not quick enough... the hem of His garment.

“Your mother saw Him clear. She was considered beautiful, but beauty's a vague term. Perhaps if I saw her now it would be clearer to me. But I'll tell you His little joke,” he lowered his voice confidentially—“it's all true—that apocalyptical heaven; there's a big book, trumpets, angels all complete singing Gregorian chants. What a sell!” He laughed, a gritty, mirthless performance.

“Come up to your room, father,” Annot urged; “his arm, Anthony.” Anthony placed his hand gently upon the biologist's shoulder, but the latter wrenched himself free. Suddenly with a choked cry and arms swinging like flails he launched himself upon the orderly plants. Before he could be stopped row upon row splintered on the floor; he fought, struggled with them as though they were animate opponents, cursed them in a high, raving voice. Anthony quickly lifted him, pinning his arms to his sides. Annot had turned away, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

Rufus Hardinge's struggling unexpectedly ceased, his countenance regained completely its habitual quietude. “I shall begin once more, at the beginning,” he whispered infinitely wistful. “The little ray of light... germ of understanding. The scientific problem of the future,” his speech became labored, thick, “scientific... future. Other avenue of progress:

“Gentlemen, the Royal Society, a paper on, on—Tears, gentlemen... not only automatic,” his voice sank to a mere incomprehensible babble. Anthony carried him to his bed, while Annot telephoned for the neurologist.

After the specialist had gone Annot came in to where Anthony waited in the study. Her feet were thrust in the Turkish slippers, her hair twisted into a hasty knot, but otherwise she had not changed. She came swiftly, with pale lips and eyes brilliantly shining from dark hollows, to his side. “His wonderful brain is dead,” she told him. “Professor Jamison thinks there will be only a few empty years to the end. But actually it's all over.” In a manner utterly incomprehensible to him she was crying softly in his arms.

He must lead her to a chair, he told himself, release her at once. Yet she remained with her warm, young body pressed against him, the circle of her arms about his neck, her tears wet upon his cheek. He stepped back, but she would have fallen if he had not continued to support her. His brain whirled under the assault, the surrender, of her dynamic youth. Their mouths met; were bruised in kissing.