“I am sure it would take a wise man to answer that question,” I replied. “And now let me show you, Doctor, how wrong you are. If you will only try to exercise a little of that good judgment for which you are noted, you will be convinced that this is only a pretty little fairy tale which has somehow taken possession of a corner of your brain. Now that the fairy is gone you must try to forget the rest. Just think how unlikely the whole story is. Think of a delicate girl living in such surroundings as we found there; and then, how could we exist down in the center of the moon?”
“Why, don’t you remember Mona told us the water and atmosphere had all run down there, making it the only habitable part of the decaying globe?”
“Oh, that’s only one of your scientific notions, probably as true as the others that we have disproved. Too much science has turned your head, and I will prove it to you again by showing you how impossible is the part which I play in your romance. I will tell you now, what you doubtless do not know, that I am engaged to be married to the best woman in all the earth, excepting your own good wife, of course.”
“Is that a fact?” asked the doctor. “And do you love her?”
“To be sure I do. I love her very dearly, and if I ever see her again I shall tell her so in a manner to make her understand it.”
“Why, doesn’t she understand it now?”
“Yes, I think so, but she thought I didn’t show heart enough in my wooing.”
“Well, if she could see you with Mona she would learn that you have plenty of heart when the right one appears to make it spring into life.”
“You speak as if you thought I did not love Margaret. You do not know her. Why, I wouldn’t once look at another woman anywhere, not even in Mars, and most certainly not in that puckered-up old world that we have just left, happily for us.”
“Do you know what I think about you?” asked the doctor.