after paying his respects to the
President, proceeded to the British Embassy and placed the copy of the
Anglo-American agreement in Lord Pauncefote's hands.

Mrs. Van Stuyler's spirits had risen as the _Astronef_ descended towards
the lights of Washington, and when the President and Lord Pauncefote
paid a visit to the wonderful craft, the joint product of American
genius and English capital and constructive skill, she immediately
assumed, at Redgrave's request, the position of lady of the house _pro
tem._, and described the "change of plans," as she called it, which led
to their transfer from the _St. Louis_ to the _Astronef_ with an
imaginative fluency which would have done credit to the most
enterprising of American interviewers.

"You see, my dear," she said to Zaidie afterwards, "as everything turned
out so very happily, and as Lord Redgrave behaved in such a splendid
way, I thought it was my duty to make everything appear as pleasant to
the President and Lord Pauncefote as I could."

"It was real good of you, Mrs. Van," said Zaidie. "If I hadn't been
paralysed with admiration I believe I should have laughed. Now if you'll
just come with us on our trip, and write a book about it afterwards just
as you told--I mean as you described what happened between the _St.
Louis_ and Washington, to the President and Lord Pauncefote, you'd make
a million dollars out of it. Say now, won't you come?"

"My dear Zaidie," Mrs. Van Stuyler replied, "you know that I am very
fond of you. If I'd only had a daughter I should have wanted her to be
just like you, and I should have wanted her to marry a man just like
Lord Redgrave. But there's a limit to everything. You say that you are
going to the moon and the stars, and to see what the other planets are
like. Well, that's your affair. I hope God will forgive you for your
presumption, and let you come back safe, but I----No. Ten--twenty
millions wouldn't pay me to tempt Providence like that."

The _Astronef_ had landed in front of the White House, as everybody
knows, on the eve of the Presidential election. After dinner in the
deck-saloon, as the Space Navigator lay in the midst of a square of
troops, outside which a huge crowd surged and struggled to get a look at
the latest miracle of constructive science, the President and the
British Ambassador said goodbye, and as soon as the gangway ladder was
drawn in the _Astronef_, moved by no visible agency, rose from the
ground amidst a ro