"No," she answered, in a low voice, but still with a question in it. "Then you are resolved to go?"
"Absolutely!" He gripped his pipe-stem hard between his teeth.
She looked down, and the red came back into her face, stealing gradually from the collar of her almost military jacket to her eyes.
"Then take me, too!" she said.
"You! I will not!" he answered brusquely.
"Please! Don't you think you almost owe it to me? It was my idea—and I worked out your equations for you. I ought to have some of the fun."
"Don't be foolish," he urged, although he hated to deny her anything. "You've got your life to live. You're young and clever and—and pretty"—his own features had become unaccountably warm—"and—and—what's the sense of it? Of course, it's a very uncertain project—this space-navigation. I wouldn't let you risk your life in this blooming car for—for anything! No—by thunder!"
"My life is my own—isn't it?—if I want to sacrifice it to science, as you purpose doing with yours?"
"One of—us—is enough," he announced with conviction.
Somehow, the word "us" sounded curiously personal. She raised her eyes to his, and there were tears in them. The flush had spread over her whole face and to the very roots of her dark-yellow hair. He had never seen her so before. She had always been so capable, so crisp, so cool—and now she was so—young, and pathetic almost. He had a strange inclination to reach over and put his arm along the back of her chair. And then she gave him a funny, teary little smile.