"Then I'll stay, of course. If you could fix the planetary orbits so
that they were parabolas, Dr. Gryce, it would suit me exactly."
He and Brett both were smiling, but Dr. Gryce's smile was momentary,
for at once that indefinable air of trouble returned to him.
"Frank," he said, "I hardly know how to begin telling you what we have
done--are about to do. It seems curious also--I know it will strike you
so, you have been such a friend to me and my children--that during all
these years we have given you no hint of our purpose."
"We have told no one," Brett put in: "no one in the world."
I said nothing, but my curiosity increased. It was doubtless of grave
import, this thing they had to tell me; the solemnity, earnestness
which stamped them both was unmistakable.
For a moment Dr. Gryce was silent; then he said abruptly, "You know,
Frank, all my life I have been engaged with science. In a measure, I
have been successful; there are a few devices which will bear my name
when I am gone."