At the same instant he plunged his hand into the basin and drew out the
flower. "There is no danger," he explained, "if you choose the right
moment. That golden ray is the signal." He held the lily toward me, and I took it in my hand. It had turned to
stone, to the purest marble. "You see," he said, "it is without a flaw. What sculptor could reproduce
it?" The marble was white as snow, but in its depths the veins of the lily
were tinged with palest azure, and a faint flush lingered deep in its
heart. "Don't ask me the reason of that," he smiled, noticing my wonder. "I have
no idea why the veins and heart are tinted, but they always are. Yesterday I tried one of Geneviève's gold-fish,--there it is." The fish looked as if sculptured in marble. But if you held it to the
light the stone was beautifully veined with a faint blue, and from
somewhere within came a rosy light like the tint which slumbers in an
opal. I looked into the basin. Once more it seemed filled with clearest
crystal. "If I should touch it now?" I demanded. "I don't know," he replied, "but you had better not try." "There is one thing I'm curious about," I said, "and that is where the
ray of sunlight came from." "It looked like a sunbeam true enough," he said. "I don't know, it always
comes when I immerse any living thing. Perhaps," he continued, smiling,
"perhaps it is the vital spark of the creature escaping to the source
from whence it came." I saw he was mocking, and threatened him with a mahl-stick, but he only
laughed and changed the subject. "Stay to lunch. Geneviève will be here directly." "I saw her going to early mass," I said, "and she looked as fresh and
sweet as that lily--before you destroyed it." "Do you think I destroyed it?" said Boris gravely. "Destroyed, preserved, how can we tell?" We sat in the corner of a studio near his unfinished group of the
"Fates." He leaned back on the sofa, twirling a sculptor's chisel and
squinting at his work. "By the way," he said, "I have finished pointing up that old academic
Ariadne, and I suppose it will have to go to the Salon. It's all I have
ready this year, but after the success the 'Madonna' brought me I feel
ashamed to send a thing like that." The "Madonna," an exquisite marble for which Geneviève had sat, had been
the sensation of last year's Salon. I looked at the Ariadne. It was a
magnificent piece of technical work, but I agreed with Boris that the
world would expect something better of him than that. Still, it was
impossible now to think of finishing in time for the Salon that splendid
terrible group half shrouded in the marble behind me. The "Fates" would
have to wait. We were proud of Boris Yvain. We claimed him and he claimed us on the
strength of his having been born in America, although his father was
French and his mother was a Russian. Every one in the Beaux Arts called
him Boris. And yet there were only two of us whom he addressed in the
same familiar way--Jack Scott and myself. Perhaps my being in love with Geneviève had something to do with his
affection for me. Not that it had ever been acknowledged between us. But
after all was settled, and she had told me with tears in her eyes that it
was Boris whom she loved, I went over to his house and congratulated him. The perfect cordiality of that interview did not deceive either of us, I
always believed, although to one at least it was a great comfort. I do
not think he and Geneviève ever spoke of the matter together, but Boris
knew. Geneviève was lovely. The Madonna-like purity of her face might have been
inspired by the Sanctus in Gounod's Mass. But I was always glad when she
changed that mood for what we called her "April Manoeuvres." She was
often as variable as an April day. In the morning grave, dignified and
sweet, at noon laughing, capricious, at evening whatever one least
expected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonna-like
tranquillity which stirred the depths of my heart. I was dreaming of
Geneviève when he spoke again. "What do you think of my discovery, Alec?" "I think it wonderful." "I shall make no use of it, you know, beyond satisfying my own curiosity
so far as may be, and the secret will die with me." "It would be rather a blow to sculpture, would it not? We painters lose
more than we ever gain by photography." Boris nodded, playing with the edge of the chisel. "This new vicious discovery would corrupt the world of art. No, I shall
never confide the secret to any one," he said slowly. It would be hard to find any one less informed about such phenomena than
myself; but of course I had heard of mineral springs so saturated with
silica that the leaves and twigs which fell into them were turned to
stone after a time. I dimly comprehended the process, how the silica
replaced the vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was a
duplicate of the object in stone. This, I confess, had never interested
me greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgusted
me. Boris, it appeared, feeling curiosity instead of repugnance, had
investigated the subject, and had accidentally stumbled on a solution
which, attacking the immersed object with a ferocity unheard of, in a
second did the work of years. This was all I could make out of the
strange story he had just been telling me. He spoke again after a long
silence. "I am almost frightened when I think what I have found. Scientists would
go mad over the discovery. It was so simple too; it discovered itself. When I think of that formula, and that new element precipitated in
metallic scales--"

"What new element?" "Oh, I haven't thought of naming it, and I don't believe I ever shall. There are enough precious metals now in the world to cut throats over." I pricked up my ears. "Have you struck gold, Boris?" "No, better;--but see here, Alec!" he laughed, starting up. "You and I
have all we need in this world. Ah! how sinister and covetous you look
already!" I laughed too, and told him I was devoured by the desire for
gold, and we had better talk of something else; so when Geneviève came in
shortly after, we had turned our backs on alchemy. Geneviève was dressed in silvery grey from head to foot. The light
glinted along the soft curves of her fair hair as she turned her cheek to
Boris; then she saw me and returned my greeting. She had never before
failed to blow me a kiss from the tips of her white fingers, and I
promptly complained of the omission. She smiled and held out her hand,
which dropped almost before it had touched mine; then she said, looking
at Boris--

"You must ask Alec to stay for luncheon." This also was something new. She had always asked me herself until to-day. "I did," said Boris shortly. "And you said yes, I hope?" She turned to me with a charming conventional
smile. I might have been an acquaintance of the day before yesterday. I
made her a low bow. "J'avais bien l'honneur, madame," but refusing to
take up our usual bantering tone, she murmured a hospitable commonplace
and disappeared.