Then she said very softly:
"I see you understand what I mean, Lenox. That's just it--original sin.
It doesn't matter how good you think me or I think you, but we have it.
You're an Earth-born man and I'm an Earth-born woman, and, as I'm your
wife, I can say it plainly. We may think a good bit of each other, but
that's no reason why we might not be a couple of plague-spots in a
sinless world like this. Surely you see what I mean, I needn't put it
plainer, need I?"
Their eyes met, and he read her meaning in hers. He put his arm up over
her shoulder and drew her down towards him. Their lips met, and then he
got up and went down to the engine-room.
A couple of minutes later the _Astronef_ sprang upwards from the midst
of the delightful valley in which she was resting. No lights were shown.
In five minutes she had passed through the cloud-veil, and the next
morning when their new friends came to visit them and found that they
had vanished back into Space, there was sorrow for the first time among
the sons and daughters of the Love-Star.
CHAPTER XIV
"Five hundred million miles from the Earth, and forty-seven million
miles from Jupiter," said Redgrave as he came into breakfast on the
morning of the twenty-eighth day after leaving Venus.
During this brief period the _Astronef_ had recrossed the orbits of the
Earth and Mars and had passed through that marvellous region of the
Solar System, the Belt of the Asteroides.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180