CHAPTER II
The Pact
"What are we going to do to-night?" asked Jim.
Dennis looked quizzically at his big friend. Jim was pacing restlessly up and down the living room of the bachelor apartment, puffing jerkily at his eternal pipe. Dennis knew the symptoms. Though he hadn't seen Jim for over a year, he remembered his characteristics well enough.
Some men seem designed only for action. They are out of step with the modern era. They should have lived centuries ago when the world was more a place of physical, and less of purely mental, rivalry.
Jim was of this sort. Each time he returned from some trip—to Siberia, the Congo, the mountainous wilderness of the Caucasus—he was going to settle down and stop hopping about the globe from one little-known and dangerous spot to another. Each time, in a matter of weeks, he grew restless again, spoiling for action. Then came another impulsive journey.
He was spoiling for action now. He didn't really care what happened that evening, what was planned. His question was simply a bored protest at a too tame existence—a wistful hope that Denny might lighten his boredom, somehow.
"What are we going to do to-night?"
"Well," said Denny solemnly, "Mrs. Van Raggan is giving a reception this evening. We might go there and meet all the Best People. There is a lecture on the esthetics of modern art at Philamo Hall. Or we can see a talkie—"
"My Lord!" fumed Jim. Then: "Kidding aside, can't you dig up something interesting?"
"Kidding aside," said Dennis, in a different tone, "I have dug up something interesting. We're going to visit a friend of mine, Matthew Breen. A young man, still unknown, who, in my opinion, is one of our greatest physicists. Matt is a kind of savage, so he may take to you. If he does—and if he's feeling in a good humor—he may show you some laboratory stunts that will afford you plenty of distraction. Come along—you're wearing out my rugs with your infernal pacing up and down!"