that were made about "decimal" he did not catch.

"How long did you say?" asked Graham. "How
long? Don't look like that. Tell me."

Among the remarks in an undertone, his ear caught
six words: "More than a couple of centuries."


_"What?"_ he cried, turning on the youth who he
thought had spoken. "Who says -- ? What was
that? A couple of centuries!"

"Yes," said the man with the red beard. "Two
hundred years."

Graham repeated the words. He had been prepared
to hear of a vast repose, and yet these concrete
centuries defeated him.

"Two hundred years," he said again, with the figure
of a great gulf opening very slowly in his mind; and
then, "Oh, but -- !"

They said nothing.

"You -- did you say -- ?"

"Two hundred years. Two centuries of years,"
said the man with the red beard.