"That's exactly what I want to talk to you about." A fiery blush burned through her deep tan, but her low, clear voice did not falter and her eyes held his unflinchingly. "I know you better than you know yourself, as I've said before. You are killing yourself, but it isn't the work, frightfully hard and disheartening as it is, that is doing it—it's your anxiety for me and the uncertainty of everything. You haven't been able to rest because you have been raging and fuming so at unavoidable conditions—you have been fighting facts. And it's all so useless, Steve, between you and me—everything would check out on zero if we'd just come out into the open."
The man's gaunt frame seemed to stiffen even more rigidly.
"You've said altogether too much or else only half enough, Nadia. You know, of course, that I've loved you ever since I got really to know you—and that didn't take long. You know that I love you and you know how I love you—with the real love that a man can feel for only one woman and only once in his life; and you know exactly what we're up against. Now that does tear it—wide open!" he finished bitterly.
"No, it doesn't, at all," she replied, steadily. "Of course I know that you love me, and I glory in it; and since you don't seem to realize that I love you in exactly the same way, I'll tell you so. Love you! Good heavens, Steve, I never dreamed that such a man as you are really existed! But you're fighting too many things at once, and they're killing you. And they're mostly imaginary, at that. Can't you see that there's no need of uncertainty between you and me? That there is no need of you driving yourself to desperation on my account? Whatever must be is all x with me, Steve. If you can build everything you need, all well and good. We'll be engaged until then, and our love will be open and sweet. If worst comes to worst, so that we can neither communicate with Brandon and Westfall nor leave here under our own power—even that is nothing to kill ourselves about. And yes, I do know exactly what we are facing. I have been prepared for it ever since I first saw what a perfectly impossible thing you are attempting. You are trying to go from almost the Age of Bronze clear up to year-after-next in a month or two. Not one man in a million could have done as much in his lifetime as you have done in the last few weeks, and I do not see how even you, with what little you have to work with, can possibly build such things as power-plants, transmitters, and ultra-radio stations. But what of it? For the day that it becomes clear that we are to remain here indefinitely; that day we will marry each other here, before God. Look around at this beautiful country. Could there be a finer world upon which to found a new race? When we decided to cut loose from the Arcturus I told you that I was with you all the way, and now I'll repeat it, with a lot more meaning. No matter what it's like, Steve, no matter where it leads to, I'm with you—to—the—end—of—the—road. Here or upon Earth or anywhere in the Universe. I am yours for life and for eternity."
While she was speaking, the grim, strained lines upon Stevens' face had disappeared, and as she fell silent he straightened up and gently, tenderly, reverently he took her lithe body into his arms.
"You're right, sweetheart—everything will check out on zero, to nineteen decimals." He was a man transfigured. "I've been fighting windmills and I've been scared sick—but how was I to think that a wonder-girl like you could ever love a mutt like me? You certainly are the gamest little partner a man ever had. You're the world's straightest shooter, ace—you're a square brick if there ever was one. Your sheer nerve in being willing to go the whole route makes me love you more than ever, if such a thing can be possible, and it certainly puts a new face on the whole cock-eyed Universe for me. However, I don't believe it will come to that. After what you've just said, I sure will lick that job, regardless of how many different factories it takes to make one armature—I'll show that mess of scrap-iron what kind of trees make shingles!"
The girl still in his arms, he rose to his feet and released her slowly, reluctantly, unwilling ever to let her go. Then he shook himself, as though an overwhelming burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and laughed happily.
"See this cigarette?" he went on lightly. "The Last of the Mohicans. I'm going to smoke it in honor of our engagement." He drew the fragrant smoke deep into his lungs and frowned at her in mock seriousness.
"This would be a nice world to live on, of course, but the jobs here are too darn steady. It also seems to be somewhat lacking in modern conveniences, such as steel-mills and machine tools. Then, too, it is just a trifle too far from the Royal and Ancient for you really to enjoy living here permanently, and besides, I can't get my favorite brand of cigarettes around here. Therefore, after due deliberation, I don't believe we'll take the place—we'll go back to Tellus. Kiss me just once more ace, and I'll make that job think a cyclone has struck it right on the center of impact. Like Samuel Weller, or whoever it was, I'm clear full of 'wigor, wim, and witality'!"
The specified kiss and several others duly delivered he strode blithely away, and the little canyon resounded with the blows of his heavy sledge as he attacked with renewed spirit the great forging, white-hot from his soak-pit, which was to become the shaft of his turbo-alternator. Nadia watched him for a moment, her very heart in her eyes, then picked up her spanner and went after more steel, breathing a long and tremulous, but supremely happy sigh.