it perhaps does not misbecome
me to say that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least
would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your
father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into
a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee
blasted into ashes with the flash of his wand."

"Do not let that fear chill your heart to me," exclaimed Zee, dropping
on her knees and absorbing my right hand in the space of her ample palm.
"It is true, indeed, that we two cannot wed as those of the same race
wed; true that the love between us must be pure as that which, in our
belief, exists between lovers who reunite in the new life beyond that
boundary at which the old life ends. But is it not happiness enough to
be together, wedded in mind and in heart? Listen: I have just left
my father. He consents to our union on those terms. I have sufficient
influence with the College of Sages to insure their request to the Tur
not to interfere with the free choice of a Gy; provided that her wedding
with one of another race be but the wedding of souls. Oh, think you that
true love needs ignoble union? It is not that I yearn only to be by your
side in this life, to be part and parcel of your joys and sorrows here:
I ask here for a tie which will bind us for ever and for ever in the
world of immortals. Do you reject me?"

As she spoke, she knelt, and the whole character of her face was
changed; nothing of sternness left to its grandeur; a divine light, as
that of an immortal, shining out from its human beauty. But she rather
awed me as an angel than moved me as a woman, and after an embarrassed
pause, I faltered forth evasive expressions of gratitude, and sought, as
delicately as I could, to point out how humiliating would be my position
amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be permitted
the name of father.

"But," said Zee, "this community does not constitute the whole world.
No; nor do all the populations comprised in the league of the Vril-ya.
For thy sake I will renounce my country and my people. We will fly
together to some region where thou shalt be safe. I am strong enough to
bear thee on my wings across the deserts that intervene. I am skilled
enough to cleave open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build
our home. Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the
universe. Or wouldst thou return to thine own world, above