"E flat!" gasped Spinrobin, not sure whether he was pleased or
disappointed.

"That's your sound, yes. You're E flat--just as I thought, just as I
hoped. You fit in exactly. It seems too good to be true!" His voice began
to boom again, as it always did when he was moved. He was striding about,
very alert, very masterful, pushing the furniture out of his way, his
eyes more luminous than ever. "It's magnificent." He stopped abruptly and
looked at the secretary with a gaze so enveloping that Spinrobin for an
instant lost his bearings altogether. "It means, my dear Spinrobin," he
said slowly, with a touch of solemnity that woke an involuntary shiver
deep in his listener's being, "that you are destined to play a part, and
an important part, in one of the grandest experiments ever dreamed of by
the heart of man. For the first time since my researches began twenty
years ago I now see the end in sight."

"Mr. Skale--that _is_ something--indeed," was all the little man could
find to say.

There was no reason he could point to why the words should have produced
a sense of chill about his heart. It was only that he felt again the huge
groundswell of this vast unknown experiment surging against him, lifting
him from his feet--as a man might feel the Atlantic swells rise with him
towards the stars before they engulfed him forever. It seemed getting a
trifle out of hand, this adventure. Yet it was what he had always longed
for, and his courage must hold firm. Besides, Miriam was involved in it
with him. What could he ask better than to risk his insignificant
personality in some gigantic, mad attempt to plumb the Unknown, with that
slender, little pale-faced Beauty by his side? The wave of Mr. Skale's
enthusiasm swept him away deliciously.