“D’Elie still with Catherine!” exclaimed Dolores with resentment.
“And with John Cabot aboard. My latest in the infernal triangle,” His Highness pointed pridefully. “Note that they have foregone all pretense of the love-making that used to engage them, these two who are agreed to exchange a title for a dot when husband sees fit to dot the matrimonial dash.”
Distress widened the spirit-girl’s eyes. “But the sanctity of marriage—have they never a thought for that?”
“The sanctity of what?” He leered at Sin. “Our lady of many griefs to men to remind us of that! May she never lose her knack of amusing us!” He eyed her with an affectation of old-school sanctimony. “Alack, my poor child, the sanctity of marriage ain’t! And even if it were, these two wouldn’t wish their future relationship hampered by such an obsolete notion. He looks to be gassing about the gas of the dirigible, from the way he’s pointing above their heads. Manlike, he probably is trying to excite her admiration for his knowledge of how it is filled with helium contained in bags of gold-beater’s skin. Helium, permit me to inform you, is an idea that earthlings borrowed from the Sun. It is supposed to be an incombustible gas. Notice that the French bounder is smoking an after-breakfast cigar.”
“And is it really safe?” Anxiety quickened Dolores’ voice.
“Really? Hast never been struck by the comparativeness of reality? Nothing is really real except eternal life and that doesn’t even sound real.”
Certainly Satan knew the value of pause. In silence he watched with them the shift of scene to where John Cabot, alone as a celebrity can be in a crowd of sycophantic fellow passengers, paced the deck. With John’s eyes, their own lifted to the air-liner’s Milky Way toward Europe, where a bank of clouds darkened the course.
“Now for something doing”—Sin to Dolores. “Take a bet with me. Will they beat the storm or the storm beat them?”
She, however, was intent on a repeated question: “You are sure, Your Lowness, that they are safe in trusting to helium?”
“It is safe to say that they think they are.”