V

Davis sat deep in thought.

'Keppel,' he said abruptly. 'Do you believe all this—about these coming people? Or are you just talking? Tell me that clearly. Are you sure the world, after a few more troubled decades, a troubled age or so at most, will go sane?'

Keppel hung fire for a moment. Then he said: 'No'

'H'm,' said Davis, and then with a flash of intuition: 'But do you disbelieve it?'

Keppel smiled the smile of a friendly and yet mischievous gnome. 'No,' he repeated with equal conviction.

'And that also,' said Dr. Holdman Stedding, after a moment's deliberation, 'is my position.'