Of course, it's rather a pity that we can't fly unless we do
it in the _Astronef_. But that's only a detail. You're enjoying yourself
thoroughly, and I never saw you looking better or, if possible, more
beautiful; and why on Earth--or Venus--do you want to go?"
She looked at him steadily for a few moments, and with an expression
which he had never seen on her face or in her eyes before, and then she
said slowly and very sweetly, although there was something like a note
of solemnity running through her tone:
"I altogether agree with you, dear; but there is something which you
don't seem to have noticed. As you say, we have had a perfectly
delightful time. It's a delicious world, and just everything that one
would think it to be; but if we were to stop here we should be
committing one of the greatest of crimes, perhaps the greatest, that
ever was committed within the limits of the Solar System."
"My dear Zaidie, what, in the name of what we used to call morals on the
Earth, _do_ you mean?"
"Just this," she replied, leaning a little towards him in her
deck-chair. "These people, half angels, and half men and women, welcomed
us after we dropped through their cloud-veil, as friends; we were a
little strange to them, certainly, but still they welcomed us as
friends. They had no suspicions of us; they didn't try to poison us or
blow us up as those wretches on Mars did.
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