"Yes, I think that's the reason, lover. I hope you won't think I'm a
clinging vine, but I can't help being afraid of something here every
time I'm away from you. You're so self-reliant, so perfectly at ease
here, that it makes me feel the same way."

"I am perfectly at ease. There's nothing to be afraid of. I've been in
hundreds of worse places, right on Earth. I sure wish I could be with
you all the time, sweetheart girl--only you can understand just how much
I wish it--but, as I said before, it won't be long until we can be
together all the time."

Dorothy pushed him into his room, followed him within it, closed the
door, and put both hands on his arm.

"Dick, sweetheart," she whispered, while a hot blush suffused her face,
"you're not as dumb as I thought you were--you're dumber! But if you
simply won't say it, I will. Don't you know that a marriage that is
legal where it is performed is legal anywhere, and that no law says that
the marriage must be performed upon the Earth?"

He pressed her to his heart in a mighty embrace, and his low voice
showed in every vibration the depth of the feeling he held for the
beautiful woman in his arms as he replied:

"I never thought of that, sweetheart, and I wouldn't have dared mention
it if I had. You're so far away from your family and your friends that
it would seem...."

"It wouldn't seem anything of the kind," she broke in earnestly. "Don't
you see, you big, dense, wonderful man, that it is the only thing to do?
We need each other, or at least, I need you, so much now...."

"Say 'each other'; it's right," declared her lover with fervor.

"It's foolish to wait. Mother would like to have seen me married, of
course; but there will be great advantages, even on that side. A grand
wedding, of the kind we would simply have to have in Washington, doesn't
appeal to me any more than it does to you--and it would bore you to
extinction. Dad would hate it, too--it's better all around to be married
here."

Seaton, who had been trying to speak, silenced her.

"I'm convinced, Dottie, have been ever since the first word. If you can
see it that way I'm so glad that I can't express it. I've been scared
stiff every time I thought of our wedding. I'll speak to the Karfedix
the first thing in the morning, and we'll be married tomorrow--or rather
today, since it is past the zero kam," as he glanced at the chronometer
upon his wrist, which, driven by wireless impulses from the master-cloc