The Centaurians
otherwise, dreamily wondering what the row was about; then, like a flash, I knew and a dull, heavy, sickening feeling gripped my whole mind. To escape the hell's torment of memory I would have given life. Oblivion? yes; if I could never have realized. Now, God! All the little tantalizing delights, the sweet doubts vanishing in happy possession I was so sure of—all was over. Who could have foreseen such an end? The very peculiarities of this woman forbade such a finale. Instead, all would have expected this stately, high-souled, devout creature to renounce mankind, remaining true to her deity, secluded, to bask forever in the warm rays of the fiery god she worshipped. Oh, if I could have remembered her always as the Priestess of the Sun! To have renounced the wonderful, mystical being I discovered! I mourned for the beautiful ideal shattered by the woman, though fashioned by a master's hand the delicate veneer revealed the commonplace at the first test—the idealist's mist blinds all eyes. And she had done as the whole world of women have ever done—surrendered at the first flash of a pair of handsome eyes and sensitive red lips.
Ah, Alpha! Alpha Centauri!
I mourn for the romance, bah! I have no passion for the woman. I rolled in the cool, green moisture, moaning aloud my misery. Some one attempted sympathy. I sprang up, pushing him aside.
"None of that," I told them, roughly, "Saun-
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