Back in Base Hospital, then, time wore on until Lacy decided that the Lensman could be aroused from his trance. Clarrissa it was who woke him up. She had fought for the privilege; first claiming it as a right and then threatening to commit mayhem upon the person of anyone else who dared even to think of doing it. "Wake up, Kim, dear," she whispered. "The worst of it is over now. You are getting well." The Gray Lensman came to instantly, in full command of every faculty, knowing everything that had happened up to the instant of his hypnosis by Worsel. He stiffened, ready to establish again the nerve block against the intolerable agony to which he had been subjected so long, but there was no need. His body was, for the first time in untold æons, free from pain; and he relaxed blissfully, reveling in the sheer comfort of it. "I'm _so_ glad that you're awake, Kim," the nurse went on. "I know that you can't talk to me--we can't unbandage your jaw until next week--and you can't think at me, either, because your new Lens hasn't come yet. But I can talk to you and you can listen. Don't be discouraged, Kim. Don't let it get you down. I love you just as much as I ever did, and as soon as you can talk we're going to get married. I am going to take care of you--" "Don't 'poor dear' me, Mac," he interrupted her with a vigorous thought. "You didn't say it, I know, but you were thinking it. I'm not half as helpless as you think I am. I can still communicate, and I can see as well as I ever could, or better. And if you think that I'm going to let you marry me to take care of me, you're crazy." "You're raving! Delirious! Stark, staring mad!" She started back, then controlled herself with an effort. "Maybe you can think at people without a Lens--of course you can, since you just did, at me--but you _can't_ see, Kim, possibly. Believe me, boy, I _know_ that you can't. I was there--" "I can, though," he insisted. "I got a lot of stuff on my second trip to Arisia that I couldn't let anybody know about then, but I can now. I've got as good a sense of perception as Tregonsee has--maybe better. To prove it, you look thin, worn--whittled down to a nub. You've been working too hard--on me." "Deduction," she scoffed. "You would know that I would." "QX. How about those roses over there on the table? White ones, yellow ones, and red ones? With ferns?" "You can smell them, perhaps"--dubiously. Then, with more assurance: "You would know that practically all the flowers known to botany would be here." "Well, I'll count 'em and point 'em out to you, then--or, better, how about that little gold locket, with 'CM' engraved on it, that you're wearing under your uniform? I can't smell that, nor the picture in it--" The man's thought faltered in embarrassment. "_My_ picture! Klono's whiskers, Mac, where did you get that--and why?" "It's a reduction that Admiral Haynes let me have made. I am wearing it because I love you--I've said that before."