if Master Cupid and Miss Venus would like a drink.
We'll see then if our nectar is anything like theirs."

Redgrave went below. Meanwhile, for lack of other possible conversation,
Zaidie began to sing the last verse of "Never Again." The melody almost
exactly described the upward motion of the _Astronef_, and she could see
that it was instantly understood, for when she had finished their two
voices joined in an almost exact imitation of it.

When Redgrave brought up the wine and the glasses they looked at them
without any sign of surprise. The pop of the cork did not even make them
look round.

"Evidently a semi-angelic people, living on nectar and ambrosia, with
nectar very like our own," he said, as he filled the glasses. "Perhaps
you'd better give it to them. They seem to understand you better than
they do me--you being, of course, a good bit nearer to the angels than I
am."

"Thanks!" she said, as she took a couple of glasses up, wondering a
little what their visitors would do with them. Somewhat to her surprise,
they took them with a little bow and a smile and sipped at the wine,
first with a swift glint of wonder in their eyes, and then with smiles
which are unmistakable evidence of perfect appreciation.

"I thought so," said Redgrave, as he raised his own glass, and bowed
gravely towards them. "This is our nearest approach to nectar, and they
seem to recognise it."

"And don't they just look like the sort of people who live on it, and,
of course, other things?" added Zaidie, as she too lifted her glass, and
looked with laughing eyes across the brim at her two guests.

But meanwhile Murgatroyd had been applying the repulsive force a little
too strongly. The _Astronef_ shot up with a rapidity which soon left her
winged escort far below. She entered the cloud-veil and passed beyond
it. The instant that the unclouded sun-rays struck the glass-roofing of
the deck-chamber their two guests, who had been moving about examining
everything with a childlike curiosity, closed their eyes and clasped
their hands over them, uttering little cries, tuneful and musical, but
still with a note of strange discord in them.

"Lenox, we must go down again," exclaimed Zaidie. "Don't you see they
can't stand the light; it hurts them. Perhaps, poor dears, it's the
first time they've ever been hurt in their lives. I don't believe they
have any of our ideas of pain or sorrow or anything of that sort. Take
us back under the clouds--q