"We must part now," she continued, with a blinding glance and a ravishing smile. "I have some last offices to perform here. We shall meet to-morrow at my father's house."
On my way home the blood coursed through my veins like an immortal ichor of the gods, full of sweet and inextinguishable fire. Inebriated with the cup of bliss which I had only tasted, I began to repent me of my promise to leave Womla.
"To-morrow Alumion will be mine," I reflected, "but for how long? A few days at the most. It is too bad!"
An idea struck me.
"Gazen," said I that night as soon as I had a convenient opportunity to speak with him, "I have married Alumion."
"Married her!" he exclaimed, completely taken aback.
"Yes, that is to say, I have gone through the formal ceremony of marriage. I have drunk of the cup."
"But you promised me you would do nothing of the kind."
"I said I would go back to the earth with you, and I will keep my word. But I must say that since I agreed to your wishes in the matter, I think you owe me some concession, and I want you to leave me in Womla while you go on to Mercury, and then come back here to pick me up. That will give me a longer honeymoon."
"Impossible, my dear fellow—quite impossible," replied the professor. "Venus will be too far out of our way home. We have no oxygen to waste, and can't go hunting you in your love affairs all round the solar system."