"If you go, I'm going with you," Carter exclaimed suddenly. His heart was pounding; a band seemed binding his chest. There is no one who can face the Unknown without a thrill of excitement, and fear.
"And leave this your world?" she murmured. "Your father and sister—they who love you just as my people love me—"
"I can come back to them. The journey—"
"The journey, it can be very long and very dangerous—"
"Not so dangerous for me as for you, Lea." He seized her by her slender shoulders and stared earnestly down into her eyes. "Look here, do you want me to come?" he demanded. "Not because I can help you—I don't mean only that. Do you want me to come?"
For an instant it seemed that in the limpid depths of her eyes a mist was gathering. Then her face turned whimsical; her mouth twisted into a little smile as she cocked her head and gazed at him slantwise from behind lowered lashes.
"That is for you to think for yourself," she murmured. "I could not stop you coming if I would. Is that not so?"
"It damn sure is," he agreed. Again he lowered his voice, with a swift glance at the bedroom door. "I don't think I'll say anything about this to father and Alice," he added softly. "Just leave them a message that I'll be right back. No use starting anything, you know."
"And you will come back soon to them? You will thank them for that they have both been so very kind to me here?"
"Sure I will. Why, Lea, we're not going far. Only into the garden, to the sundial's pointer. Why, if you look at it like that, we're not going maybe even an eighth of an inch beneath the surface of that metal pointer!"