hat someone who shouldn't be, was tuned to us as we sat
there in that lonely grove! With the doctor's widespread reputation--his
more than national prominence--it did not seem to me to be such a long
chance either, on this, of all nights.

"As you say, no use in putting private things into the public air," I
remarked; and I felt then as though a thousand hostile eyes and ears
were watching and listening. "We can talk of what everybody knows,"
Georg commented. "The Martian Ruler of the Little People was
assassinated an hour ago. You heard that coming up?"

"No," I said; but I had imagined as much. "Did they say--"

"They said nothing," Dr. Brende put in. "The flash of a dozen helioed
words--no more."

"It went dark, like Venus?"

"No. Just discontinued. I judge they're excited up there--the Bureau
disorganized perhaps--I don't know. That was the last we got at the
house, just before you came down. There may be something in there
now--you Inter-Allied people are pretty reliable."

The ruler of the Venus Central State, the leading monarch of Mars, and
our three chief executives of Earth--murdered almost simultaneously! It
was incredible--any one of the murders would have been incredible--yet
it was true.

There had been times--in the Inter-Allied Office, particularly--when I
had been insulated from aerial eavesdropping. But never had I felt the
need of it more than now. A constraint fell over me; I seemed afraid to
say anything. I think we all three felt very much like that; and it was
a relief when Elza arrived with my dainty little meal.

"Any word from Mars, Elza?" her father asked.

She sat down beside me, helping me to the food.

"I did not look," she answered.

She did not look, because she was busy preparing my meal! Dear little
Elza! And because of my accursed extravagance--my poverty--no word of
love had ever passed between us!

I thought I had never seen Elza so beautiful as this moment. A slim
little thing, perfectly formed and matured, and inches shorter than I.
Thick brown hair braided, and hanging below her waist. A face--pretty as
her mother's must have been--yet intellectual as her father's.

I had taken Elza to the great music festivals of the city, and counted
her the best dressed girl in all the vast throng. Tonight she was
dressed simply. A grey-blue, tubular sort of skirt, clinging close to
the lines of her figure and split at the side for walking; a
tight-fitting bodice, light in color