e. I suppose the simplest and most
intelligible name for it would be mental telepathy. But it is more than
that, and basically it is as simple and material as your own motion
pictures."

I think Melbourne would have gone on and told me more about his
discoveries. At that moment, however, he paused to reflect, and we
looked up to find the others leaving. The bottle of Scotch was empty.

"Ready, Melbourne?" Barclay called. We rose.

"I didn't realize it was so late," Melbourne answered. "Mr. Barrett and
I have found each other most interesting."

We all found our hats and went out. Melbourne and Barclay, each
apologizing for having neglected the other, said good-bye. Barclay was
tired and wanted to go to bed. He went off with the others, but
Melbourne turned my way.

"If you're not too weary of my company," he said, "I'll go with you a
little way."

"You know I'm not," I answered. "I've never been so interested in
anything before. It sounds like a chapter from Wells, or Jules Verne."

He smiled, with a little shake of his head, and we walked on for awhile
in silence toward the lake....

* * * * *

All this came back to me swiftly and with an effect of incoherence, much
as a dream moves, during the few moments when I was getting ready for my
bath. I laid out my shaving things, and put a record on the Victrola. I
have never quite conquered my need for music while I bathe and dress. I
think the record was a Grieg nocturne--something cool and quiet, with a
touch of acutely sweet pain and melancholy.

Then I happened to glance at a mirror for the first time. I stood amazed
and transfixed. Overnight I had grown a beard such as wanderers bring
back with them from the wilderness. Under the beard, my face seemed to
have altered somehow, to have changed in some peculiar way. Physically
it appeared younger, with an expression of calm and repose such as I had
never before seen on a man's face. But the eyes were wise and old, as
if--overnight!--the mind behind them had learned the knowledge of all
time.

Or was it overnight? I could not lose that feeling that time had passed
by since my last contact with ordinary life. It was as though, somewhere
and somehow, I had lived for weeks or months in some new plane, and
forgotten it. I felt richer and older than I had once felt, and the
things I had been remembering seemed remote.

At that moment, a chance strain from the machine in my living roo