"But if I were to place ads in scientific publications and have Dr.
Ferris"—he stopped; he saw her glance at him as swiftly as he glanced at her; she said nothing, but she held his glance; he looked away and finished the sentence coldly and firmly—"and have Dr. Ferris broadcast on the radio that I wish to see him, would he refuse to come?"
"Yes, Dr. Stadler, I think he would refuse."
He was not looking at her. She saw the faint tightening of his facial muscles and, simultaneously, the look of something going slack in the lines of his face; she could not tell what sort of light was dying within him nor what made her think of the death of a light.
He tossed the manuscript down on the desk with a casual, contemptuous movement of his wrist. 'Those men who do not mind being practical enough to sell their brains for money, ought to acquire a little knowledge of the conditions of practical reality."
He looked at her with a touch of defiance, as if waiting for an angry answer. But her answer was worse than anger: her face remained expressionless, as if the truth or falsehood of his convictions were of no concern to her any longer. She said politely, "The second question I wanted to ask you was whether you would be kind enough to tell me the name of any physicist you know who, in your judgment, would possess the ability to attempt the reconstruction of this motor."
He looked at her and chuckled; it was a sound of pain. "Have you been tortured by it, too, Miss Taggart? By the impossibility of finding any sort of intelligence anywhere?"
"I have interviewed some physicists who were highly recommended to me and I have found them to be hopeless."
He leaned forward eagerly. "Miss Taggart," he asked, "did you call on me because you trusted the integrity of my scientific judgment?"
The question was a naked plea.
"Yes," she answered evenly, "I trusted the integrity of your scientific judgment."
He leaned back; he looked as if some hidden smile were smoothing the tension away from his face. "I wish I could help you," he said, as to a comrade. "I most selfishly wish I could help you, because, you see, this has been my hardest problem—trying to find men of talent for my own staff. Talent, hell! I'd be satisfied with just a semblance of promise —but the men they send me couldn't be honestly said to possess the potentiality of developing into decent garage mechanics. I don't know whether I am getting older and more demanding, or whether the human race is degenerating, but the world didn't seem to be so barren of intelligence in my youth. Today, if you saw the kind of men I've had to interview, you'd—"
He stopped abruptly, as if at a sudden recollection. He remained silent; he seemed to be considering something he knew, but did not wish to tell her; she became certain of it, when he concluded brusquely, in that tone of resentment which conceals an evasion, "No, I don't know anyone I'd care to recommend to you."
"This was all I wanted to ask you, Dr. Stadler," she said. "Thank you for giving me your time."
He sat silently still for a moment, as if he could not bring himself to leave.
"Miss Taggart," he asked, "could you show me the actual motor itself?"
She looked at him, astonished. "Why, yes . . . if you wish. But it's in an underground vault, down in our Terminal tunnels."
"I don't mind, if you wouldn't mind taking me down there. I have no special motive. It's only my personal curiosity. I would like to see it—that's all."
When they stood in the granite vault, over a glass case containing a shape of broken metal, he took off his hat with a slow, absent movement—and she could not tell whether it was the routine gesture of remembering that he was in a room with a lady, or the gesture of baring one's head over a coffin.
They stood in silence, in the glare of a single light refracted from the glass surface to their faces. Train wheels were clicking in the distance, and it seemed at times as if a sudden, sharper jolt of vibration were about to awaken an answer from the corpse in the glass case.
"It's so wonderful," said Dr. Stadler, his voice low. "It's so wonderful to see a great, new, crucial idea which is not mine!"
