offered, if necessary, to displace his presidential and
Doctor-of-Laws friends in order to make room.

"You will have an ideal trip," she said, looking over some
astronomical star-charts and photographic maps of Jupiter and
Saturn that lay on the table, with a pair of compasses, "and I
hope you won't lose your way."

"I shall need no compass to find my way back," replied Ayrault,
"if I ever succeed in leaving this planet; neither will
star-charts be necessary, for you will be a magnet stronger than
any compass, and, compared with my star, all others are dim."

"You should write a book," said Sylvia, "and put some of those
things in it." She was wearing a bunch of forget-me-nots and
violets that she had cut from a small flower-garden of potted
plants Ayrault had sent her, which she had placed in her father's
conservatory.

At this moment the small chime clock set in the Callisto's
wood-work rang out quarter to eleven. As the sounds died away,
Sylvia became very pale, and began to regret in her womanly way
that she had allowed her hero to attempt this experiment.

"Oh," she said, clinging to his arm, "it was very wrong of me to
let you begin this. I was so dazzled by the splendour of your
scheme when I heard it, and so anxious that you should have the
glory of being the first to surpass Columbus, that I did not
realize the full meaning. I thought, also, you seemed rather
ready to leave me," she added gently, "and so said little; you do