The President did not reply. As a matter of fact, he had no reply ready, and he had something else to do. He rose, and said in a somewhat constrained voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Marmion has shown us some very strange demonstrations which have certainly amply justified the title which he selected. A good many gentlemen, and some ladies as well, I am glad to see, have followed his calculations very carefully. I have done the same myself, but I am bound to confess that I have not been able to find any error. I think I shall be right in saying that no one will be more pleased than the learned and--er--gifted lecturer to hear that some one else has been able to do so." Franklin Marmion bowed his assent, and a faint smile flickered across his clean-shaven lips. The next instant Professor van Huysman was on his legs, note-book in one hand and stylo in the other. All the fresh colour had gone out of his face; his eyes were burning, and his lips were twitching with uncontrollable excitement. "My Lord," he began, in a voice that even Brenda hardly recognised, "like yourself, I have been unable to find any actual error in the lecturer's demonstrations of which I will take permission to call the possibility of the impossible; in other words, that a contradiction in terms can be true and false at one and the same time. That, my Lord, and ladies, and gentlemen," he went on, raising his voice almost to a shout, "is still, and, I hope, in the interests of true science, and not adroit jugglery with figures and formulae, will ever remain, another impossibility. Professor Marmion has apparently trisected the triangle, squared the circle, and doubled the cube. It may be that he has persuaded some present that he really has done so; but, again, in the interests of science, I desire to protest against the way in which these demonstrations have been sprung upon us. Calculations which he has doubtless taken months to elaborate, he has asked us to test in a few minutes. For myself, I decline to accept them as true, and I hope that others will do the same until we have had time to satisfy ourselves that the hitherto impossible has been made possible."