I think Melbourne would have gone on and told me more about his discoveries. At that moment, however, he paused to reflect, and we looked up to find the others leaving. The bottle of Scotch was empty.
"Ready, Melbourne?" Barclay called. We rose.
"I didn't realize it was so late," Melbourne answered. "Mr. Barrett and I have found each other most interesting."
We all found our hats and went out. Melbourne and Barclay, each apologizing for having neglected the other, said good-bye. Barclay was tired and wanted to go to bed. He went off with the others, but Melbourne turned my way.
"If you're not too weary of my company," he said, "I'll go with you a little way."
"You know I'm not," I answered. "I've never been so interested in anything before. It sounds like a chapter from Wells, or Jules Verne."
He smiled, with a little shake of his head, and we walked on for awhile in silence toward the lake....
All this came back to me swiftly and with an effect of incoherence, much as a dream moves, during the few moments when I was getting ready for my bath. I laid out my shaving things, and put a record on the Victrola. I have never quite conquered my need for music while I bathe and dress. I think the record was a Grieg nocturne—something cool and quiet, with a touch of acutely sweet pain and melancholy.
Then I happened to glance at a mirror for the first time. I stood amazed and transfixed. Overnight I had grown a beard such as wanderers bring back with them from the wilderness. Under the beard, my face seemed to have altered somehow, to have changed in some peculiar way. Physically it appeared younger, with an expression of calm and repose such as I had never before seen on a man's face. But the eyes were wise and old, as if—overnight!—the mind behind them had learned the knowledge of all time.