he had brought the girl here to talk to her, he had
now nothing to say, but sat in aching silence with his eyes on the
loveliness of her face.

Galatea pointed at the red ascending sun. "So short a time," she said,
"before you go back to your phantom world. I shall be sorry, very
sorry." She touched his cheek with her fingers. "Dear shadow!"

"Suppose," said Dan huskily, "that I won't go. What if I won't leave
here?" His voice grew fiercer. "I'll not go! I'm going to stay!"

The calm mournfulness of the girl's face checked him; he felt the irony
of struggling against the inevitable progress of a dream. She spoke.
"Had I the making of the laws, you should stay. But you can't, dear one.
You can't!"

Forgotten now were the words of the Grey Weaver. "I love you, Galatea,"
he said.

"And I you," she whispered. "See, dearest shadow, how I break the same
law my mother broke, and am glad to face the sorrow it will bring." She
placed her hand tenderly over his. "Leucon is very wise and I am bound
to obey him, but this is beyond his wisdom because he let himself grow
old." She paused. "He let himself grow old," she repeated slowly. A
strange light gleamed in her dark eyes as she turned suddenly to Dan.

"Dear one!" she said tensely. "That thing that happens to the old--that
death of yours! What follows it?"

"What follows death?" he echoed. "Who knows?"

"But--" Her voice was quivering. "But one can't simply--vanish! There
must be an awakening."

"Who knows?" said Dan again. "There are those who believe we wake to a
happier world, but--" He shook his head hopelessly.

"It must be true! Oh, it must be!" Galatea cried. "There must be more
for you than the mad world you speak of!" She leaned very close.
"Suppose, dear," she said, "that when my appointed lover arrives, I send
him away. Suppose I bear no child, but let myself grow old, older than
Leucon, old until death. Would I join you in your happier world?"

"Galatea!" he cried distractedly. "Oh, my dearest--what a terrible
thought!"

"More terrible than you know," she whispered, still very close to him.
"It is more than violation of a law; it is rebellion! Everything is
planned, everything was foreseen, except this; and if I bear no child,
her place will be left unfilled, and the places of her children, and of
_their_ children, and so on until some day the whole great plan of
Paracosma fails of whatever its destiny was to be." Her whisper grew
very faint and fearfu