The Wit and Humor of America Volume IV Part 28

"Miss Aura," he went on,--he has called me that ever since that little embryonic made his stupid blunder, and I have not corrected him--here it is almost necessary to have some sort of a name--"Miss Aura, don't you think we have been mere acquaintances long enough? I'm only human--"

"Yes, of course," I interrupted, "but then that is not your fault--"

"I'm glad you look upon my misfortune so charitably," he said, a trifle more puzzled than usual, as I fancied.

"It is my duty," I replied. "I want to elevate you; to brighten your existence."

"My Aura!" he whispered; and I was not quite sure whether he meant me or not.

We were moving rapidly along the broad road beside a river. There were hills in the distance and the air from them was in the key of the Pleiades. There were gardens everywhere full of sunlight translated into flowers, and without an effort one divined the harmony of growing things. I felt that something was about to happen; I knew it, but I did not care to ask what it might be. Perhaps if I had tried I could not have known; perhaps for that hour I was only an Earth girl and could only know things as they know them, but I did not care.

We were going faster, faster every moment.

"Was it you who willed me to come out into the country?" I asked. "Have you been watching for me and expecting me?"

We were moving now as clouds that rush across a moon.

"I think I have been watching for you all my life and willing you to come," he said, which shows how dreadfully unjust we sometimes are to humans.

"While I was on another planet?" I inquired. "While we were millions and millions of miles apart? Suppose that I had never come to Earth?"

We were moving like the falling stars one journeys to the Dark Hemisphere to see.

"I should have found you all the same," he whispered, half laughing, but his blue eyes glistened. "I do not think that s.p.a.ce itself could separate us."

"Oh, do you realize that?" I asked, "and do you really know?"

"I know I have you with me now," he said, "and that is all I care to know."

We were flying now, flying as comets fly to perihelion. The world about was slipping from us, disintegrating and dissolving into cosmic thoughts expressed in color. Only his eyes were actual, and the blue hills far away, and the wind from them in the key of the Pleiades.

"There shall never any more be time or s.p.a.ce for us," he said.

"But," I protested, "we must not overlook the fundamental facts."

"In all the universe there is just one fact," he cried, catching my hand in his, and then--

(NOTE: _Here a portion of the logogram becomes indecipherable, owing, perhaps, to the pa.s.sage of some large bird across the line of projection. What follows is the last recorded vibragraph to date._)

--Yes, dear, I know I should have been more circ.u.mspect. I should have remembered my position, but I didn't. And that's why I'm engaged to be married.--You have to here, when you reach a certain point--I know you will think it a great come-down for one of us, but after all do we not owe something to our sister planets?--