Sir William looked steadily at his assistant. "Your brain is wonderfully sufficient," he said. "It is extraordinary how it withstands the ravages of alcohol. Really, my dear Wilson, you are a remarkable man. All you say is quite excellent. And, meanwhile, I have a proposal to make." He suddenly rose from his chair, and his eyes began to blaze with insane passion. He shook with it, his whole face was transformed. In his turn he became abnormal. And just as the famous man had thought of the lesser, a moment or two ago--had regarded him coldly and spoken of him, to him, as a mind diseased--so now the lesser, stimulated to spurious sanity for the moment, saw the light of mania in his chief's eyes. Two great forces, two great criminals, two horrid egotists, and both lost men! Lost far more certainly and irrevocably than the prisoned and dying gentleman far below in the strong room, where the electric fans whispered all day and night, where the fetters jingled and the heart was turning to salt stone! The man was changed utterly. The grave courtly ascetic vanished as a breath on glass vanishes. And in his stead stood a creature racked with evil jealousy and malice, a gaunt inhuman figure in whose eyes was the glitter of a bird of prey. Guest saw the swift and terrible drop into the horrible and the grotesque. He realized that for a brief moment he was master of the situation. "Tell me, William," he said. "And what is your idea?" Gouldesbrough stopped. He turned towards his questioner and shook a long, threatening arm at him.