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Meanwhile they had put on their breathing-suits, and Redgrave had seen that the air chamber through which they had to pass from their own little world into the new ones that they visited was in working order. When the outer door was opened and the ladder lowered he stood aside, as he had done on the Moon, and Zaidie's was the first human foot which made an imprint on the virgin snows of Venus.
Far away below them on the other side of the clouds the St. Louis was steaming eastward, and with her were going the last hopes of the coronet which was to be the matrimonial equivalent of Miss Zaidie's beauty and Russell Rennick's millions. They were no longer of the world. Its laws could no longer protect them.
As he said this the car swung out round a broad curve into the centre of the great square, and a little cry of amazement broke from Zaidie's lips as her glance roamed over the multiplying splendours about her.
"Good," said their host, getting up from his deck-chair and stretching himself up straight, looking the while at Miss Zaidie's averted profile. "That's gorgeously good! We might even turn the election. I'm for sound money all the time, if I may be permitted to speak American." "English is quite good enough for us, Lord Redgrave," said Miss Zaidie a little stiffly.
He paused for a moment and then, looking straight into Zaidie's eyes, he added: "The one condition I make is that the vote shall be unanimous." "Under the circumstances, Lord Redgrave," said Mrs. Van Stuyler, rising from her seat and walking towards him with all the dignity that would have been hers in her own drawing-room, "there can only be one answer to that.
They had left the conning-tower, and both his lordship and Murgatroyd were throwing open the sliding-doors and, to Zaidie's considerable displeasure, getting the deck Maxims ready for action in case they should be required. As soon as the doors were open Zaidie's judgment of the inhabitants of Venus was entirely justified.
Zaidie's head had dropped heavily on his shoulder. A glance showed him that she had fainted. He could do nothing more in the conning-tower, so he picked her up and carried her towards the companion-way, past his three guests, who were standing in the middle of the upper deck round a table on which lay a large sheet of paper.
Zaidie's comparison to the whale and the jelly-fish was by no means incorrect; only when they got near enough to them they found, to their astonishment, that they were double-headed that is to say, they had a head with a mouth, nostrils, ear-holes, and eyes at each end of their bodies. The larger of the creatures appeared to have a certain amount of respect for each other.
His voice sounded a little queer and squeaky over the wire, and for the matter of that so did Zaidie's as she replied: "Yes, I'm ready, I think. I hope these things will work all right."
Van Stuyler again. It was a kind of three-cornered duel of eyes, and the eyes said a good deal more than common human speech could have done. Then Lord Redgrave, in answer to the last glance from Zaidie's eyes, said slowly and deliberately: "I don't want to take any undue advantage, but I think I am justified in making one condition.
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