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Londonward.
THE flat, on the third floor of No. 37, Little Oakfield Street, which is an
exceedingly decorous and respectable street not far from the Haymarket,
consisted of four rooms and usual domestic offices, of course. Gees reserved
two rooms as his residence, maintained one as his own very comfortably
furnished office, and the fourth, on the right of the short corridor as one
entered the flat, was devoted to Miss
Brandon s use.
She had been his secretary since, to his father s wrath, he had announced in
the personal columns of otherwise unblemished newspapers that he was prepared
to tackle anything from mumps to murder.
The day after his return from Troyarbour, she sat behind the typewriter on her
desk, smoking one of
Gees cigarettes, while he sat on the corner of the desk. He had dictated all
he could tell her about his visits to Naylor and interviews with Ira Warenn,
and now her shorthand notebook lay closed beside her, until he should see fit
to go to his own room and leave her to get on with the transcription.
He appeared in no hurry, but, for him unusually and gravely thoughtful. Miss
Brandon sat silent, waiting. She was, as he had realised long since, an
exceedingly attractive girl, and a clever one as well.
Clever enough to hide from him the fact that he had so far grown into her
life, become such a part of her thought and feeling, as to form her chief
interest. Clever enough to retain a cool, rather satiric attitude, knowing
full well that any change in their relationship would end her tenancy of this
room: she wanted to keep near him: some day, perhaps, he might realise that he
had only to ask&
To-day, she waited, and in the end stubbed out the cigarette in the ash-tray
she had so placed that he could use it too. Instantly his case flew into his
hand, and opened itself under her eyes.
She said, No, thank you, Mr. Green. Not just now.
Oomph! Did you get all I ve been telling you?
I can promise you an accurate transcription, she answered coolly.
And what have you! He put acrid emphasis into the comment. I meant did you
take it all in enough to discuss it?
I yes, I think so, if you wish to discuss it with me. That fourth dimension
part of it is rather over my head, I m afraid. I know very little about the
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subject except I know that if we could find a fourth perpendicular to the
three we already comprehend, we should open up a new world, and have full
control of this we know.
That s all anyone knows, he said. Except, perhaps, this Ira Warenn. She s
found it, past doubt, but there s a vast difference between I might find a
herd of elephants, but that s not to say I could
make money out of giving tuppenny rides on em. You get that.
She nodded, thoughtfully. One has to learn, just as one learned to walk and
talk. Yes. In a different world. New conditions yes.
New presences, he added. You ve got it down what was it she told me?
Yes intelligences far beyond ours. In the world that interpenetrates ours, the
fourth perpendicular cutting across all three that we know. Obviously those
intelligences must be far beyond ours, since they have full comprehension of
this fourth direction line of movement, or what you like to call it. Consider
that at this moment you and I are being watched and studied, perhaps, by those
far vaster intellects and moving as they can they are able to see into our
minds and spread out our very thoughts while we are restricted to speech for
interpretation of what we want to express
I d rather not consider it, she interrupted.
You prefer normality, eh? Well, I don t. I want to explore that fourth
direction, learn to step out from solidity into that unknown region as she
stepped out. Out and back, at will.
Which means, you will go back to Troyarbour, she asserted.
I shall not! He put vigour into the denial. A, I ve paid in Naylor s cheque
for eighteen guineas, told him I ll have nothing more to do with him, and so
finished the case. B, I am definitely afraid of that woman girl, for she s
little more. I don t know what her age actually is, except that she s so
strong an example of heredity that in development she s centuries old. I mean
she has a vast inherited knowledge, a store that she hadn t to learn again at
the beginning of this present life. As if Dark Lagny had come back to earth.
I know, she said. We all have flashes, call them of prenatal memory, at
times. Some of us more than others.
You? , he asked interestedly.
Sometimes. I may feel that I know a place, or a person, or seeing or meeting
for the first time.
Prenatal memory, I think.
Probably. Almost certainly. Y know, Miss Brandon, you make a most excellent
wall for me to bounce my thoughts against. They come back all flattened out
and expanded, so I can see em much better.
You told me that some while ago, she observed. My ulterior use to you, in
addition to the mere secretaryship.
Now you re getting uppish, and we re wandering clean away from all I want to
discuss with you, he reproved her. This never mind St. Pol Naylor I wonder
why St. Pol. but it doesn t matter. He knows no more than I do about this
fourth-dimensional discovery
Fifth dimensional, surely, she interrupted.
Fourth in space I m leaving time out of it, for simplification of my own
thought. Browning had a glimpse of it he was a seer, of course. Do you
remember
Abt Vogler
She shook her head. Some of it. Not enough to quote.
He quoted
Nay, more: for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnished for
ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live,
in a house to their liking at last;
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Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were
back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
And what is shall I say, matched both
?
She ended the verse, very softly, For I was made perfect too.
You do know it, I see, he said. To have written that, he must have seen, no
matter how dimly.
Along that fourth direction, into the world of those greater presences. And
she s found the way in!
That axe-handle, which gave her the key, must be terrific. Not as an
axe-handle, but as what I think it was originally.
And that? she asked, as he did not explain.
She said it was narwhal horn. In other words, it would last not merely years,
but centuries, unless it were laid out to rot through weather conditions heat
and frost. Tens of centuries it may date back to the days when An was still
above the waters, may be some symbol carried when the processions went through
Atlantis, the mother of hewn cities (Atlantis was literally carved out of the
living rock). Priestly or royal more likely belonging to some Adept.
I want to discuss with you, for the sake of clarifying my own ideas, what
she s got on that ancient bone. All in runic characters, I made it to be, and
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