It was white with heat, its surface sparkling with a hundred tiny stars that died on its glowing surface.
"Just toss in some of that stuff there on the leaf," he quietly instructed Elaine. "It will soon be ready to pour."
The "stuff" was flux, and Elaine obeyed directions like the stanch assistant that she was. She wondered what was coming next.
It came very soon. She was certain no ruddier figure of Vulcan, employing mighty flame, had ever been presented than now when Grenville made ready for the climax of his work.
He removed the door as he had not previously done, and set it aside from his path. He thrust in his tongs, while flame and heat came pouring out to paint him a deep and glowing color. Then, seemingly hotter than ever before, and smoking goldenly above its blinding incandescence, the first of the crucibles, itself fairly dripping, where some of the flux had trickled down its surface, was supported over to the molds, to be quickly and vigorously skimmed of its oxidized matter.
But the molten brass, indescribably beautiful, with ruby and gold and silver gleams imbedded and breaking in its substance, was the wonder of it all. Elaine stood entranced, to see it flow and fill the hollows of the molds.
The second was hastily drawn from the flame, and then the third and last. But not till all lay finally empty and smoking on the earth, their surfaces rapidly dulling, did Grenville pause to look at Elaine and smile.
"Can't even tell what we've done," he said, "till the molds are cooled and opened."
"Must you wait very long till you know?"
"I couldn't wait long," Grenville answered. "I'm too much of a curious kid."