This page has been validated.

The Centaurians


Tolna regretted, the others crowded about us, but finally with many salutes we were escorted from the hall.

When we were alone Saxe. advised and warned me, and Saunders shook his head. "To think it should come true!" he muttered.

"Yes," said Saxe., "your vision is mortal. You will realize what is denied to most. All have ideals, those are rare that are realized."

"Don't congratulate him yet, boys," chimed in Sheldon; "wait till the 'ideal' materializes, perhaps then he'll want our sympathies. And, Sally, did you really believe in the vision? But of course you did; the effect was powerful; you gave up everything to join us."

"I loved!" I cried, all aflame. "Sometimes I believed, again doubted; but all the time I loved, and that leads anywhere, most often to hell!"

Saxe. threw up his hands in protest. He was not a profane man, and Saunders suggested we retire.

Our room was spacious, luxurious, divided into four by tall granite columns. The furniture was rich, but weighty in effect, and fantastically carved; the beds were long, narrow and heavily padded; we sank deep in softness, inhaling a sleep producing odor, sweet, sensuous.

Drowsily Sheldon uttered a gruesome joke, and Saxe. yawned his preference for the bunks of his car.

152