Only--I smiled--Croft had told me he could gain Palos as quickly in the consciousness as I could project myself there in my mind--so, by now, that stirring of her strong man's limbs, beneath the eyes of the fair watcher, had occurred, and once more those two were together. I smiled again. The picture of that reunion appealed. There was nothing else to it at the instant. For even in my wildest imaginings I did not in the least suspect what its nearness, its clearness, the vividness of its seeming, might portend. * * * * * No, even though I myself had delved more or less deeply into occult lore, with a resulting knowledge of the subject that had brought about the sympathetic understanding of all Croft had told me from first to last, I had little or no conception that night of the inward meaning of the distinctness with which I could conjure up the scene of his return to Naia, or to where the ability might lead. Rather, I felt merely that through his narrative of her wooing he had built up within my mental cells a picture of the fair girl now his bride, so clear, so positive in seeming, that to me she appeared no more than a charming personality--a feminine acquaintance, such as one might on occasion meet. She was no more removed, so far as my feeling of familiarity with her was concerned, than had her residence been not on Palos, but simply across the street. It is so easy to bridge distance in the mind. I slept after a time, as one will, drifting from continued thought upon one subject into slumber. And I woke with the thought of Croft's weird homecoming still in mind. It stayed with me more or less, too, in the succeeding days. Naia of Aphur! Oddly I dwelt upon her. Jason himself had told me that she knew me--had actually seen me--that he had brought her to earth more than once in the astral body--had pointed me out to her as the one earth man who knew and believed his story--that she looked upon me as a friend. The thing seemed some way to establish a sort of personal bond, just as the secret Croft and I had kept between us made me feel toward him as I have never felt toward any other man. Jason Croft and Naia of Aphur--the interplanetary lovers. It was certainly odd. I knew her, even though I had never seen her; save through the instrumentality of his description of her, and the resultant picture printed on my mind. Yet I could close my eyes at will and see her, slender, golden-haired, with her lips of flaming scarlet, and her violet-purple eyes.