“Yes—but it was different——”
“You mean I looked ‘mature,’ then?” she laughed. “Oh, well! Nobody will interfere with a girl returning home from school in Geneva!”
A pained smile crossed his face.
“Yes!—you can play that part very well!” he admitted. “But you cannot live alone without someone to look after you!”
She gave a light gesture of indifference.
“No? Well, I will get some dear old lady ‘in reduced circumstances’ to do that. There are so many of them—all with excellent references. Someone about my own age would do,—for after all, I’m over forty!”
He uttered an exclamation of impatience.
“Why will you say that?”
“Because it’s true!” she replied. “According to this planet’s time. But”—here her eyes flashed with a strange and almost unearthly lustre—“there are other planets—other countings! And by these, I am—well!—what I am!”
He looked at her in mingled doubt and wonder.