Rachel's mirth vanished and the colour flew over her face.
After an uncomfortable pause, she took Annie's hand.
"You look too much on the dark side, try to be patient awhile longer. Things may straighten themselves." She pressed Annie's fingers. "Now tell me, shall I slip this note under his door, or shall I hand it to him. It's important."
"Oh, you needn't slip it under the door, you can just go right in and put it where he'll see it; the door will be open fast enough. A lot of good that special lock does," Annie finished in a burst of scorn. "Mr. Mudge thought we'd better have it put on to protect Alexander from dishonest people who come in and get him talking and then steal his ideas. But do you suppose he leaves the door closed? Not a bit of it. Why only yesterday he had the lock tied back with a string while he poured all he knew into the ear of a man from that screw company across the street. A word of flattery and he forgets everything."
"Don't—don't tell me any more, please;" and as Rachel turned away smiles rippled over her face. Why could not Annie, Simon, Victor Mudge, everyone, see that the inventor lived in another world and hence was not amenable to the laws of this. Nodding to Annie, who refused to be won from her dejected mood, Rachel traversed the passageway, and paused at the door of Emil's eyrie.
As Annie had pictured, the patent lock was out of commission and the door stood wide open. Placing her note on the corner of a desk where he could not fail to see it, Rachel lingered on the threshold. Had he observed her, she could not have remained, but he kept steadily forward with his work.
It was a rich pleasure to note every detail of the room—the sagging couch, the shabby coat hanging against the wall, the table laden with dust, bottles and tobacco boxes, the long bench, on the lower shelf of which was ranged, with astonishing order, a multitude of tools. She drew a contented sigh.
The sun poured through the skylight and twinkled on the brass-work of his darling inventions, enthroned behind the glass of an old bookcase. Even while he slept, they peered out at him, these children of his active brain. And in every corner some mechanism was revealed, some cunning, complicated thing of joints and prisms.
Rachel completed her inventory, then her brows suddenly rose and her eyes with involuntary devotion fixed themselves upon Emil. It was as if she had saved him until the last for a closer inspection, like a little girl who reserves her chief treasure for a leisurely examination.
Seated on a high stool, before a bench, he was at work, from his head covered with its thick mane, the eyes burning beneath like coals, down to his big feet, planted against a convenient shelf. These feet hinted at a force in him that urged him to make a rift in the wall of the Unknown.