They had all been very good to us; our friends had a party to celebrate our engagement and we were universally congratulated and all the rest of it. Yes, Kane was there too, shaking my hand and wishing me all the luck in the world. Afterward he went back to his work and his pilot's practice with a strange fierceness. If at times I fell into glum abstraction, well, I had always been a little moody and Barbara could tease me out of it. Most of the times I was with her, I didn't think about the future at all. There had been a certain deep inward coldness to her. She had carried the old wound of her losses with bitter dignity. But as the days went on, I saw less and less of it. She would even admit that individual Valgolians might be fine fellows and that the Empire had done a few constructive things for Earth. But it was more than a change of attitude. She was thawing after a long winter, she laughed more, she was wholly human now. _Human_-- We sat one evening, she and I, in one of the big lounges the base had for its personnel. There were only one or two muted lights in the long quiet room, a breathing of music, snatches of whispering like our own. She sat close against me, and my lips kept straying down to brush her hair and her cheek. "When we're married--" she said dreamily. Then all at once: "Con, what are we waiting for?" * * * * * I looked at her in some surprise. "Con, why do we assume we can't get married before the war's over?" Her voice was low and hurried, shaking just a little. "The base here has chaplains. It's less than a month now till the business starts. God knows what'll happen then. Either of us might be killed." I heard her gulp. "Con, if they killed you--" "They won't," I said. "I'm kill-proof." "No, no. We have so little time, and it may be all we'll ever have. Marry me now, darling, dearest, and at least there'll be something to remember. Whatever comes, we'll have had that while." "I tell you," I insisted, with a sudden hideous dismay, "there's nothing to worry about. Forget it." "Oh, I'm not asking for pity. I've more happiness now than is right. Maybe that's why I'm afraid. But, Con, they killed my father and they killed my mother and they killed Jimmy, and if they take you too, it'll be more than I can stand." The savage woe of an old Earthly poet lanced through my brain: The time is out of joint O cursèd spite, That ever I was born To set it right! And then, for just a moment, there came the notion of yielding. _You love the girl, Conru. You love her so much it's a pain in you. Well, take her! Marry her!_ No. I was not excessively tender of heart or conscience, but neither was I that kind of scoundrel. I kissed her words away. Afterward, alone in the darkness of my room, I realized that Conrad Haugen had no good reason to hang back. It was true, all she said was true, and no other couple was waiting for an uncertain future. It was the time for action.