edy. You know I couldn't carry either of their hats to a
dog-fight."

"And I would _never_ have believed that you are basically modest."

"I said cut out the kidding, Belle."

"I'm deadly serious. A brain that could do _that_," she waved at the
chart, "... well, even I am not enough of a heel to belittle one of the
most tremendous intuitions ever achieved by man. Not that I like it.
It's horrible. It denies mankind everything that made him come up from
the slime--everything that made him man."

* * *

"Not at all. Nothing is changed, in man's own frame of reference. It
merely takes our thinking one step farther. That step, of course, isn't
easy."

"_That_ is the understatement of all time. What it will _do_, though, is
set up an inferiority complex that would wipe out the whole human race."

"There might be some slight tendency. Also, since my basic assumption
can't be justified, the whole thing may be fallacious. So I'm not going
to publish it." He glanced at the chart and it vanished.

"Clee!" Belle stared, almost goggle-eyed. "With your name? The
tremendous splash ... I see. You're really grown up."

"Not all the way, probably; but pretty nearly--I hope."

"But some of the ... not exactly corollaries, but...." Belle's face,
which had regained some of its color, began again to pale.

"Which one of the many?"

"The most shattering one, to me, concerns intelligence. If it is true
that our vaunted mentality is only that of one blood cell compared to
that of a whole brain ... and that intelligence is banked, level upon
level ... well, it's simply mind-wrecking. I've been trying madly not to
think of that concept, at all, but I can't put it off much longer."

"Now's as good a time as any. I'll hold your hand."

"You'd better hold more of me than that, I think."

"I'll do even that, in a good cause." He put his arms around her; held
her close. "Go ahead. Face it. All the way down and all the way up.
You've got what it takes. You'll come back sane and it'll never bother
you again."

She closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Her every muscle went
tense.

Neither of them ever knew how long they stood there, close-clasped and
motionless in silence; but finally her muscles loosened. She lifted her
head; raised her brimming eyes.

"All the way down?" he asked.

"To almost a geometrical point."

"And all the way up?"

"I touched the fringe of infinity."

"Intelligen