And since these numbers filled his mind, intruding on all the affairs of his life with the vision of a new world, perhaps the chapters of this book may be allowed to follow the Moseley order. The names of the elements will usually be irrelevant to the chapters, but not to the subject on which Marvin brooded, and not to the deeper nature of the world we live in. Chapter 4. Beryllium When he went to Boltwood to inquire further about Moseley, he was heartily received. The discoverer of ionium even admitted that it might be possible some day to unlock the energy of lead, and that the thing might come sooner than anybody expected, but that a hundred years was soon. He gladly admitted the inquirer into a course, found him quick and ingenious, praised him for his mathematics, and encouraged him. But Marvin was eager for quick results, and finally decided to specialize in power production. He would spend his first year of graduate study in New York and try to master fuels. After that he would study hydro-electric. Naturally however he felt a new curiosity about each element. Number 4, for instance, sprang into life as a definite thing. He made a journey to Haddam and searched for beryl. He found the little mine still producing, and learned that beryllium was slowly finding its way into spark-plugs and aeroplanes, and that the race spends a hundred thousand dollars a year for the pleasure of giving beryl to girls. From Haddam he carried one very beautiful light-green crystal up to Eglantine, with the intention of giving it to Cynthia. But Cynthia never got it. It went to a new girl, one Gratia Ferry, daughter of Asher, the harvester man, whose great factory lay just to the west of Chicago on the road to a village called Warrenville. She was seventeen and peculiarly difficult to flirt with. How can one flirt with a pearl? She was so sensible, so serious, so lacking in humor that she simply did not know how to play. Exquisitely beautiful, she aroused only the tenderest respect. When he danced with her, his auburn hair vivid above her pale gold, he held her as gingerly as if she were a bit of living Sevres. It is just as well that he did so, because Cynthia—well, Cynthia’s dramatic passion suddenly turned into a real one. Wise young daughters of New England manufacturers looked on with amusement and rather expected tragedy before the end of the year. After Christmas, though Gratia went home for the holidays, it somehow leaked out that the beryl she now appeared with, its pale elegance shining on her white neck above her green crepe de chine, was the gift of Marvin Mahan. They were astonished that her mother would let her accept such a thing from a man to whom she was not engaged. As a matter of fact her mother knew nothing about it.