Every day, for a growing number of hours, we were together in her apartment. She personally instructed me in the language, and such was my desire to talk to this radiant being that I made an apt pupil. Soon I had progressed enough to converse with her--in a stilted, incorrect way--on all but the most abstract of subjects. It was a fine language. I liked it, as I liked everything else about Zyobor. The upper earth seemed far away and well forgotten. Her name, I found, was Aga. A beautiful name.... "How did your kingdom begin?" I asked her one day, while we were sitting beside one of the small pools in the gardens. We were close together. Now and then my shoulder touched hers, and she did not draw away. "I know not," she replied. "It is older than any of our ancient records can say. I am the three hundred and eleventh of the present reigning line." "And we are the first to enter thy realm from the upper world?" "Thou art the first." "There is no other entrance but the sea-way into which we were drawn?" "There is no other entrance." * * * * * I was silent, trying to realize the finality of my residence here. At the moment I didn't care much if I never got home! "In the monarchies we know above," I said finally, avoiding her violet eyes, "it is not the custom for the queen--or king--to reign alone. A consort is chosen. Is it not so here? Has thou not, among thy nobles, some one thou hast destined--" I stopped, feeling that if she dismissed me in anger and never spoke to me again the punishment would be just. But she wasn't angry. A lovely tide of color stained her cheeks. Her lips parted, and she turned her head. For a long time she said nothing. Then she faced me, with a light in her eyes that sent the blood racing in my veins. "I have not yet chosen," she murmured. "Mayhap soon I shall tell thee why." She rose and hurried back toward the palace. But at the door she paused--and smiled at me in a way that had nothing whatever to do with queenship. * * * * * As the time sped by the three of us settled into the routine of the city as though we had never known of anything else. The Professor spent most of his time down by the sea chamber where the food was dragged in by the intelligent servant-fish. He was in a zoologist's paradise. Not a creature that came in there had ever been catalogued before. He wrote reams of notes on the parchment paper used by the citizens in recording their transactions. Particularly was he interested in the vast, lowly mound-fish. One time, when I happened to be with him, the receding waters of the chamber disclosed the body of one of the odd herdsmen of these deep sea flocks. Then the Professor's elation knew no bounds. We hurried forward to look at it.