“We can’t stand here all our lives,” Billy grumbled. “My legs are getting tired already.”
“Open your door and call some one,” Epworth instructed.
“It is locked,” Joan replied. “I have——”
The door opened and Herman Toplinsky stepped in.
“Ah, ha, ho, ho, it is a great voyage—a magnificent start.” Toplinsky closed the door carefully. “Indeed a wonderful trip is ahead of us. We leave the earth at a speed of six hundred miles an hour with our liquid rockets working admirably. Fair Joan, do you know where we are going?”
Joan was breathless with the fear that Toplinsky would discover Epworth and Billy at the panel, but when she replied her voice was cold and hard. At least she could put this man in his place.
“I haven’t the least idea, and my name—well, my name is a good name and I am not ashamed of it. It is Miss Joan Epworth to you, sir.”
“Ah ha, ho, ho, high hatty—somewhat ritzy. Well, Miss Joan, we are on the way to the moon. By the time we get there I am of the opinion that you will be pleased to hear me call you Joan. This is our initial trip—the first out—and I could not forego myself the pleasure of seeing your beautiful face during the journey. In fact I am crazy about you. Presently—ah, ha, we shall see what we shall see.”
There was a treacherous threat in the words that caused the girl to grow cold and hot by turns. The words meant more than death to her.
“And how about that agreement with me?”