great hold his discovery took upon my mind the moment he
recounted it. From the very first, under the spell of his personality, I
believed, and I knew he was speaking the truth. And it opened up before
me new vistas. I began to see myself become suddenly eternal, never
again to know the fear of death. I could see myself storing up, century
after century, an amplitude of wisdom and experience that would make me
truly a god.

"Sir John!" I cried, long before he was finished. "You must perform that
operation on me!"

"But, Dennell, you are too hasty. You must not put yourself so rashly
into my hands."

"You have perfected the operation, haven't you?"

"That is true," he said.

"You must try it out on somebody, must you not?"

"Yes, of course. And yet--somehow, Dennell, I am afraid. I cannot help
feeling that man is not yet prepared for such a vast thing. There are
sacrifices. One must give up love and all sensual pleasure. This
operation not only takes away the mere fact of reproduction, but it
deprives one of all the things that go with sex, all love, all sense of
beauty, all feeling for poetry and the arts. It leaves only the few
emotions, selfish emotions, that are necessary to self-preservation. Do
you not see? One becomes an intellect, nothing more--a cold apotheosis
of reason. And I, for one, cannot face such a thing calmly."

"But, Sir John, like many fears, it is largely horrible in the
foresight. After you have changed your nature you cannot regret it. What
you are would be as horrible an idea to you afterwards as the thought of
what you will be seems now."

"True, true. I know it. But it is hard to face, nevertheless."

"I am not afraid to face it."

"You do not understand it, Dennell, I am afraid. And I wonder whether
you or I or any of us on this earth are ready for such a step. After
all, to make a race deathless, one should be sure it is a perfect race."

"Sir John," I said, "it is not you who have to face this, nor any one
else in the world till you are ready. But I am firmly resolved, and I
demand it of you as my friend."

Well, we argued much further, but in the end I won. Sir John promised to
perform the operation three days later.

... But do you perceive now what I had forgotten during all that
discussion, the one thing I had thought I could never forget so long as
I lived, not even for an instant? It was my love for Alice--I had
forgotten that!

* * * *