All three laughed and Ross remarked: “That is almost precisely what I’ve been telling Eastern, but he does not see it.” “No! I don’t,” said downright Gilbert. “I don’t see that we have drawn near to the time of a reaction by any means, considering that there are many things which have been commonly known at different periods and yet with all our ultra science are now a sealed letter. So science is evidently not at its zenith yet.” “In the natural course of events things do die out as the use for them declines, or the phases of life alter, or those with secrets fail to commit them to writing, or they are lost, but there is nothing abnormal in that,” answered Ross, lightly. “But don’t you think that if science is as much advanced as you say, these secrets would not be lost? Don’t you consider it want of brain, rather?” objected Gilbert. “No, not by any means,” said Dennis, “I think it is mere chance.” “I differ with you both,” argued Gilbert, unconvinced. “I think these things come in cycles. Take stained glass for instance—not the fired and coloured glass of to-day, but the real old-fashioned stained glass that admits the passage of sunlight, the sunbeams remaining untinted by the glass they pass through, and which gives strange reflections in a mirror. This was discovered in the seventh century and made in several countries, proving that the secret was not entirely limited, yet the art was lost for many centuries, rediscovered in the fourteenth century and again practised in several countries, and soon afterwards again lost, to remain so till the twenty-first century, when it was again in vogue in various places for a short time, soon to be again lost, and, as you know, thousands of pounds are now being spent daily in experiments in the hope of the secret being rediscovered, yet it is as elusive and far off as if it had never been. Now if this is, as you say, the most scientific age of the world’s history, why the failure? To my mind, the answer is that the cycle has not yet returned and when it does, the secret will come out itself, whether it is in the manufacture, the firing, the glass, or the colours used. Surely you cannot call such a singular occurrence a mere coincidence!” “I grant there are unargumentable facts,” replied Ross, “but I am rather inclined to believe that if the experts in that line were intensely serious, they would solve the problem, for I think what has been done can be done again by earnest application.” “It’s all very well for you to talk like that,” said Gilbert, with energy, “you’ve always been lucky in succeeding with everything to which you set your hand, but I myself firmly believe that no amount of luck will enable things to be done till their time comes round, and you have taken up the phases of science which were ready to be solved.” “What about yourself then,” asked Dennis, smiling. “Have you also hit upon the phases that were ready and waiting?”