entirely horrid, as I've often said before, when you
get on subjects like these. Not, of course, that I'm ashamed of my poor
relations; and then, after all, your Darwin was quite wrong when he
talked about the descent of man--and woman. We--especially the
women--have _as_cended from that sort of thing, if there's any truth in
the story at all; though, personally, I must say I prefer dear old
Mother Eve."

"Who never had a sweeter daughter than----!" he replied, drawing her
towards him.

"Very prettily put, my Lord," she laughed, releasing herself with a
gentle twirl; "and now I'll go and get dinner ready. After all, it
doesn't matter what world one's in, one gets hungry all the same."

The dinner, which was eaten somewhere in the middle of the
fifteen-year-long day of Saturn, was a more than usually pleasant one,
because they were now nearing the turning-point of their trip into the
depths of Space, and thoughts of home and friends were already beginning
to fly back across the thousand-million-mile gulf which lay between them
and the Earth which they had left only a little more than two months
ago.

While they were at dinner the _Astronef_ rose above the mountains and
resumed her southward course. Zaidie brought the coffee up on deck as
usual after dinner, and, while Redgrave smoked his cigar and Zaidie her
cigarette, they luxuriated in the magnificent spectacle of the sunlit
side of the Rings towering up, rainbow built on rainbow, to the zenith
of their visible heavens.

"What a pity there aren't any words to describe it!" said Zaidie. "I
wonder if the descendants of the ancestors of the future human race on
Saturn will invent anything like a suitable language. I wonder how
they'll talk about those Rings millions of years hence."

"By that time there may not be any Rings," Lenox replied, blowing one of
blue smoke from his own lips. "Look at that--made in a moment and gone
in a moment--and yet on exactly the same principle, it gives one a dim
idea of the difference between time and eternity. After all it's only
another example of Kelvin's theory of vortices. Nebulae, and asteroids,
and planet-rings, and smoke-rings are really all made on the same
principle."

"My dear Lenox, if you're going to get as philosophical and as
commonplace as that, I'm going to bed. Now that I come to think of it,
I've been up about fifteen Earth-hours, so it's about time I went and
had a sleep. It's your turn to make the coffee in th