e used, in answer to my inquiry as to its meaning.

"Parents, brothers, and sisters, yes; and," she added in a low,
thoughtful tone, "lovers."

"And you, Dejah Thoris, have parents and brothers and sisters?"

"Yes."

"And a--lover?"

She was silent, nor could I venture to repeat the question.

"The man of Barsoom," she finally ventured, "does not ask personal
questions of women, except his mother, and the woman he has fought for
and won."

"But I have fought--" I started, and then I wished my tongue had been
cut from my mouth; for she turned even as I caught myself and ceased,
and drawing my silks from her shoulder she held them out to me, and
without a word, and with head held high, she moved with the carriage of
the queen she was toward the plaza and the doorway of her quarters.

I did not attempt to follow her, other than to see that she reached the
building in safety, but, directing Woola to accompany her, I turned
disconsolately and entered my own house. I sat for hours cross-legged,
and cross-tempered, upon my silks meditating upon the queer freaks
chance plays upon us poor devils of mortals.

So this was love! I had escaped it for all the years I had roamed the
five continents and their encircling seas; in spite of beautiful women
and urging opportunity; in spite of a half-desire for love and a
constant search for my ideal, it had remained for me to fall furiously
and hopelessly in love with a creature from another world, of a species
similar possibly, yet not identical with mine. A woman who was hatched
from an egg, and whose span of life might cover a thousand years; whose
people had strange customs and ideas; a woman whose hopes, whose
pleasures, whose standards of virtue and of right and wrong might vary
as greatly from mine as did those of the green Martians.

Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the
greatest misery I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for
all the riches of Barsoom. Such is love, and such are lovers wherever
love is known.

To me, Dejah Thoris was all that was perfect; all that was virtuous and
beautiful and noble and good. I believed that from the bottom of my
heart, from the depth of my soul on that night in Korad as I sat
cross-legged upon my silks while the nearer moon of Barsoom raced
through the western sky toward the horizon, and lighted up the gold and
marble, and jeweled mosaics of my world-old chamber, and I believe it
to