Page:The council of seven.djvu/139

 "Hierons the inventor. You know him?"

"I used to know him at home. And I met him again, the first time for some years, at dinner the other night. He had just arrived from Ottawa, although like myself I'm proud to say he's an American citizen."

"Yes, a wonderful man. Another Edison, people seem to think. I met him in New York last year. He impressed me enormously. For a man still young he's gone a long way already on his own lines, and he's expected to go farther. His grasp of general world conditions and their relation to modern thought in its present state of continual flux was amazing."

Helen agreed. She too, was quite fascinated by him. Apart from his work, the importance of which could hardly be exaggerated, George Hierons had the mind of a seer.

There was a note, however, in this enthusiasm which suddenly cast Endor into an odd change of mood.

"Let us hope," he said, with a melancholy so intense that to Helen it was like a blow over the heart, "that he won't try too much. To me that seemed his danger. Wasn't it Goethe who said that man must learn first to know where his problem begins? Minds of the Hieron's type don't always recognize how small are the resources of humanity. The best, the wisest, the strongest, all are in chains. Man is a slave."

Helen was unready to accept so hard a saying.

"One can but read the riddle by the inner light," Endor went on. "Since this time last week I have