ving for. They wooed her with equal ardor and fire, and so
intense became their struggle for her that half the student-body took
to wagering wildly on the result. Even "old" Moss, one day, after an
astounding demonstration in his private laboratory by Paul, was
guilty to the extent of a month's salary of backing him to become the
bridegroom of Doris Van Benschoten.

In the end she solved the problem in her own way, to everybody's
satisfaction except Paul's and Lloyd's. Getting them together, she said
that she really could not choose between them because she loved them
both equally well; and that, unfortunately, since polyandry was not
permitted in the United States she would be compelled to forego the
honor and happiness of marrying either of them. Each blamed the other
for this lamentable outcome, and the bitterness between them grew more
bitter.

But things came to a head enough. It was at my home, after they had
taken their degrees and dropped out of the world's sight, that the
beginning of the end came to pass. Both were men of means, with little
inclination and no necessity for professional life. My friendship and
their mutual animosity were the two things that linked them in any
way together. While they were very often at my place, they made it
a fastidious point to avoid each other on such visits, though it was
inevitable, under the circumstances, that they should come upon each
other occasionally.

On the day I have in recollection, Paul Tichlorne had been mooning all
morning in my study over a current scientific review. This left me
free to my own affairs, and I was out among my roses when Lloyd Inwood
arrived. Clipping and pruning and tacking the climbers on the porch,
with my mouth full of nails, and Lloyd following me about and lending a
hand now and again, we fell to discussing the mythical race of invisible
people, that strange and vagrant people the traditions of which have
come down to us. Lloyd warmed to the talk in his nervous, jerky fashion,
and was soon interrogating the physical properties and possibilities of
invisibility. A perfectly black object, he contended, would elude and
defy the acutest vision.

"Color is a sensation," he was saying. "It has no objective reality.
Without light, we can see neither colors nor objects themselves. All
objects are black in the dark, and in the dark it is impossible to see
them. If no light strikes upon them, then no light is flung back from
them to the eye,