"You must be very proud," said the girl listlessly, and the leonine man brought his pacings up very short. Pain marked the tycoon's face. Deepening lines went snaking from his puckered brows.
"Eh? I'm proud enough, but I'll never be really happy! That's the bitter edge of crushing an enemy, I guess. I'd give everything I ever owned, turn over every red copper, if I could only make you well again, cure you from the Venus plague. You know that, darling."
Wistful eyes glimmered moistly, and her feeble hands pressed his monstrous one against her cheek.
"As a last resort," bellowed a new voice, "I'd even take you up on that, Marshall! I believe you were expecting me!"
Marshall spun and his gray mane quivered. It angered him to be caught off guard. Glaring past the glistening pyrite cases of interplanetary souvenirs, he saw the doorway. In it stood a man garbed roughly as are those accustomed to space travel, a great fellow fully as large as himself, who had to stoop to get in.
Stalking forward grimly came the mastodonic spaceman, while wellworn asteroid boots cut insolent gashes in the varnished teakwood floors, leaving scars that struck sparks in the owner's outraged eye as he watched the careless advance.
A spectacled secretary thrust his head in at the doorway, panting in an effort to overtake the caller.
"Mr. Rufus Thallin to call upon you," he gasped and withdrew apologetically.
"Mister who?" demanded Marshall.
"Rufus Thallin was my father," announced the young giant softly, and his grey eyes kindled. "They put him away yesterday, scattered his ashes to the infinities he loved. He made me promise to keep the old Thallin Starways going, whatever I did. That's why I'm here."