Rolph was also late—so much so that he had encountered Sir John on the stairs, and the party in the drawing-room had a good quarter of an hour’s chat in the twilight, before the candles were lit.
“And you think it possible that it is caused by another planet?” Glynne was saying as the major entered the room; and he paused for a moment or two noting the change that had come over his niece. There was an eager look in her eyes; her face was more animated as she sat in the window catching the last reflections of the western glow, listening the while to Alleyne, who, with his back to the light, was talking in a low, deep voice of some problem in his favourite pursuit.
“Yes; just as happened over Neptune. That appears to be the only solution of the difficulty,” he replied.
“Then why not direct your glass exactly at the place where you feel this planet must be?”
Alleyne smiled as he spoke next.
“I did not explain to you,” he said, “that if such a planet does exist it must be, comparatively, very small, and so surrounded by the intense light of the sun that no glass we have yet made would render it visible.”
“How strange!” said Glynne, thoughtfully; and her eyes vaguely wandered over the evening sky, and then back to rest in a rapt, dreamy way upon the quiet, absorbed face of the visitor.
“I was looking at Jupiter last night,” she said, suddenly, “trying to see his moons.”
“Yes?”
“But our glass is not sufficiently powerful. I could only distinguish two.”