thought. "I'm always saying the wrong things at the
wrong time with Oona. I don't seem to have any understanding of a
woman's psychology at all; I'm hopeless."

"Of course" he said aloud. "It shall be as you wish."

* * * * *

The girl still didn't look at him. Her face under the transparent
rainbow umbrella of the swooshing jet again was radiant with that
strange smile which women preserve for their newly born after the pangs
of birth or for their men when unseeing they lie in fever deliriums; the
old, the knowing smile as she starts on the road to pain. Still smiling
she gripped the controls with her firm, capable hands.

"From the first minute," she said, "we've been friends, Semper. Let's
stay that way. This afternoon I made a fool of myself by telling you
first to stay on and then to go away. I was a little unnerved; I'm
sorry, Semper, it won't happen again. I, too, am living under a
considerable strain. You won't leave, I can see that now; it's partly my
fault and partly the perversity of the male. Promise me as a friend that
you'll be careful, understand? _Very, very_ careful in all matters
concerning The Brain and above all: discreet. Will you do that?"

It buoyed Lee up no end.

"Of course, Oona," he said. "You know that I trust your judgment. You
know that I think the world of you."

"That's wonderful," she exclaimed, "and now: look down; see the last act
before the curtain falls."

Down in the canyon deeps the dream cities and castles which millions of
years and the river built were changing contours and colors as the big
fireball dived into the Sierra Mountains. And then the shadows raced
like a ferocious hunt out of the deep, chasing away the last iridescence
of that awesome beauty and drowning it in the rising tide of the night.

The girl had flicked on the dashboard lights; the radio started humming
the tune of the Cephalon sound-beam, a deft turn of the wheel set the
jetticopter upon its course. They were alone under the stars; all the
other pleasure craft had returned before darkness from the fashionable
sunset-cocktail hour over the Grand Canyon. Now it was Lee's arm which
eased itself around the shoulder of the girl feeling with a delight in
its every nerve the slight pressure by which she answered it.

"I'm going to kiss her now," he thought, "at last, at last!"

There was a buzz in the phone and Lee lost contact with her shoulder as
suddenly she bent forwar