"There might be some slight tendency. Also, since my basic assumption can't be justified, the whole thing may be fallacious. So I'm not going to publish it." He glanced at the chart and it vanished. "Clee!" Belle stared, almost goggle-eyed. "With your name? The tremendous splash ... I see. You're really grown up." "Not all the way, probably; but pretty nearly--I hope." "But some of the ... not exactly corollaries, but...." Belle's face, which had regained some of its color, began again to pale. "Which one of the many?" "The most shattering one, to me, concerns intelligence. If it is true that our vaunted mentality is only that of one blood cell compared to that of a whole brain ... and that intelligence is banked, level upon level ... well, it's simply mind-wrecking. I've been trying madly not to think of that concept, at all, but I can't put it off much longer." "Now's as good a time as any. I'll hold your hand." "You'd better hold more of me than that, I think." "I'll do even that, in a good cause." He put his arms around her; held her close. "Go ahead. Face it. All the way down and all the way up. You've got what it takes. You'll come back sane and it'll never bother you again." She closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Her every muscle went tense. Neither of them ever knew how long they stood there, close-clasped and motionless in silence; but finally her muscles loosened. She lifted her head; raised her brimming eyes. "All the way down?" he asked. "To almost a geometrical point." "And all the way up?" "I touched the fringe of infinity." "Intelligence all the way?" "All the way. I couldn't understand any of them, of course, but I looked each one squarely in the eye." "Good girl. And you're still sane." "As much so as ever ... more so, maybe." She disengaged herself, sat down on the bed, lighted a cigarette, and smoked half of it. Then she stood up. "Clee, if anything in the whole universe ever knocked hell out of anything, that did out of me. I'm going to do something that will take about ten minutes. Will you wait right here?" "Of course. Take all the time you want." * * * When she came back Garlock leaped to his feet and stared speechlessly. He could not even whistle. Belle's hair was now its natural deep, rich chestnut, her lipstick was red, her nails were bare, and she wore a white shirt and an almost-knee-length crimson skirt. "Here's what I'm going to do," she said, quietly. "I'm going to be a plain, ordinary brownette. I'm going to marry you as soon as we land; registered permanent family. I'm going to have six kids and spoil them rotten. In short, I have grown up--partly up, at least--too."