"Ah! well," he answered, "I shall come over and see you when I get back." He had told me earlier that he was going abroad for some months.
We hesitated a moment by the gate, and instinctively we both looked up at the vault of the sky and the glimmering dust of stars.
The same thought was probably in both our minds, the thought of the insignificance of this little system that revolves round one of the lesser lights of the Milky Way, but that thought was not to be expressed save by some banality, and we did not speak.
"I shall certainly look you up when I come back," said Challis.
"Yes; I hope you will," I said lamely.
I watched the loom of his figure against the vague background till I could distinguish it no longer.