who had resigned a fortune to the transcendent
invention, side by side with two
or three of those Very Great Ones, they
stood, four nights later, looking through
a monster telescope upon a mountain-top,
and saw--saw the celestial climax,
the first of the heavenly bodies reached.
Saw the blue powder-flash light up the
full, round face of the Silver Queen they
loved, while the Thunder Bird, expiring,
dropped its bones upon her dead surface.

"It's--got--there," breathed the youth.
"What next? Some day--some day, maybe,
we'll be shooting off there--together?"

"Yes! if only the Man in the Moon
could shoot us back!" breathed Pemrose.
Already it had come to be "we" bound
up with "What next?" for it would,
indeed, be a zero "next" in which the
hands of youth and maiden would not
meet in comradeship--and love.

But the sun and center of the girl's
heart was still--and would be for long
-her father.

[[299]]

p298 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p299w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p300

v?