"Haven't you noticed any difference in me lately?"

He had never noticed a difference in his wife. When they reached old age, he would still be unable to discern it. He shook his head and looked at her with some apprehension. She was troubled. "What's the matter?"

"I suppose you wouldn't—yet," she said. "But—well—I'm with child."

The professor folded his upper lip between his thumb and forefinger. "With child? Pregnant? You mean—"

"I'm going to have a baby."

Soon after their marriage the timid notion of parenthood had escaped them. They had, in fact, avoided its mechanics except on those rare evenings when tranquillity and the reproductive urge conspired to imbue him with courage and her with sinfulness. Nothing came of that infrequent union. They never expected anything.

And now they were faced with it. He murmured: "A baby."

Faint annoyance moved her. "Yes. That's what one has. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know, Matilda. But I'm glad."

She softened. "So am I, Abednego."

Then a hissing, spattering sound issued from the kitchen. "The beans!" Mrs. Danner said. The second idyl of their lives was finished.

Alone in his bed, tossing on the humid muslin sheets, Danner struggled within himself. The hour that was at hand would be short. The logical step after the tadpoles and the kitten was to vaccinate the human mammal with his serum. To produce a super-child, an invulnerable man. As a scientist he was passionately intrigued by the idea. As a husband he was dubious. As a member of society he was terrified.

That his wife would submit to the plan or to the step it necessitated was beyond belief. She would never allow a sticky tube of foreign animal matter to be poured into her veins. She would not permit the will of God to be altered or her offspring to be the subject of experiment. Another man would have laughed at the notion of persuading her. Mr. Danner never laughed at matters that involved his wife.

There was another danger. If the child was female and became a woman like his wife, then the effect of such strength would be awful indeed. He envisioned a militant reformer, an iron-bound Calvinist, remodelling the world single-handed. A Scotch 

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