Billie caught his hand and patted it. Her lips were trembling; she could not trust herself to speak. Her husband stared at her with eyes that were still bewildered and tried hard to understand.
Smith could say nothing. The doctor, however, got to his feet and stretched.
"Phew!" taking off the brass bracelets and reaching for a handful of the Venusian books. "That was—going some!"
He located a passage in one of the books. "I guess we've had enough of people like ourselves. What do you say," eagerly, "to visiting a place where they're not even the same sort of animals as we are?"
He looked around enthusiastically. Smith made a brief sound of agreement, and remained in his chair. Both he and the doctor looked to Billie and Van Emmon for comment.
But the man and the woman were content to look at one another. Their minds had room for only one problem; their eyes saw nothing, cared to see nothing, save that which love seeks and, having found, is satisfied with.
Did it make any difference to Billie that her husband had sympathized with Capellette's greatest despot and worst failure? Did it make any difference to Van that Billie approved when the woman she was allied with discarded the despot for the devolutionist?
Or was Billie still his chief reason for existing, and was Van hers?
That was the real question! Small matters like life in other worlds—they could wait!