hout the
attitudinizor. As soon as I began to perceive in her what Carter saw, I
would know that success was imminent.

Those next two weeks were a strange interval of time. I haunted the
laboratory of van Manderpootz at odd hours, having learned from the
University office what periods he devoted to his courses. When one day I
found the attitudinizor missing, I prevailed on Carter to show me where
it was kept, and he, influenced doubtless by my friendship for the man
he practically worshipped, indicated the place without question. But
later I suspect that he began to doubt his wisdom in this, for I know he
thought it very strange for me to sit for long periods staring at him; I
caught all sorts of puzzled questions in his mind, though as I have
said, these were hard for me to decipher until I began to learn Carter's
personal system of symbolism by which he thought. But at least one man
was pleased--my father, who took my absences from the office and neglect
of business as signs of good health and spirits, and congratulated me
warmly on the improvement.

But the experiment was beginning to work, I found myself sympathizing
with Carter's viewpoint, and little by little the mad world in which he
lived was becoming as logical as my own. I learned to recognize colors
through his eyes; I learned to understand form and shape; most
fundamental of all, I learned his values, his attitudes, his tastes. And
these last were a little inconvenient at times, for on the several
occasions when I supplemented my daily calls with visits to van
Manderpootz in the evening, I found some difficulty in separating my own
respectful regard for the great man from Carter's unreasoning worship,
with the result that I was on the verge of blurting out the whole thing
to him several times. And perhaps it was a guilty conscience, but I kept
thinking that the shrewd blue eyes of the professor rested on me with a
curiously suspicious expression all evening.

The thing was approaching its culmination. Now and then, when I looked
at the angular ugliness of Miss Fitch, I began to catch glimpses of the
same miraculous beauty that Carter found in her--glimpses only, but
harbingers of success. Each day I arrived at the laboratory with
increasing eagerness, for each day brought me nearer to the achievement
I sought. That is, my eagerness increased until one day I arrived to
find neither Carter nor Miss Fitch present, but van Manderpootz, who
should have been