le feeling of all; I knew
at last that the scientific achievement I had made and lost counted for
little with me. It was the girl. I realized then that the only being I
ever could care for was living out her life with her world, and, indeed,
her whole universe, in an atom of that ring."

The Chemist stopped talking and looked from one to the other of the
tense faces of his companions.

"It's almost too big an idea to grasp," murmured the Doctor.

"What caused the explosion?" asked the Very Young Man.

"I do not know." The Chemist addressed his reply to the Doctor, as the
most understanding of the group. "I can appreciate, though, that through
that lens I was magnifying tremendously those peculiar light-radiations
that I have described. I believe the molecules of the lens were
shattered by them--I had exposed it longer to them that evening than any
of the others."

The Doctor nodded his comprehension of this theory.

Impressed in spite of himself, the Banker took another drink and leaned
forward in his chair. "Then you really think that there is a girl now
inside the gold of that ring?" he asked.

"He didn't say that necessarily," interrupted the Big Business Man.

"Yes, he did."

"As a matter of fact, I do believe that to be the case," said the
Chemist earnestly. "I believe that every particle of matter in our
universe contains within it an equally complex and complete a universe,
which to its inhabitants seems as large as ours. I think, also that the
whole realm of our interplanetary space, our solar system and all the
remote stars of the heavens are contained within the atom of some other
universe as gigantic to us as we are to the universe in that ring."

"Gosh!" said the Very Young Man.

"It doesn't make one feel very important in the scheme of things, does
it?" remarked the Big Business Man dryly.

The Chemist smiled. "The existence of no individual, no nation, no
world, nor any one universe is of the least importance."

"Then it would be possible," said the Doctor, "for this gigantic
universe that contains us in one of its atoms, to be itself contained
within the atom of another universe, still more gigantic, and so on."

"That is my theory," said the Chemist.

"And in each of the atoms of the rocks of that cave there may be other
worlds proportionately minute?"

"I can see no reason to doubt it."

"Well, there is no proof, anyway," said the Banker. "We might as well
believe it."

"I intend