“Yes, three years was little enough.”
“Shall I release you?”
“No, I’ll marry you as soon as you like.”
He sat very still, looking out through the resonant trees to that white river of foam and passion. He was silent for ages, and she thought him weighing her fate. At last he spoke.
“Darling, it has just occurred to me that there must be another isotope of osmium.”
“I’ll bet,” she smiled, “that there is.”
He was silent again for another age.
“Darling, why should one uranium live six million years while another lives only two?”
She looked at him with roguish eyes.
“I don’t know. Let’s go and ask father.”