‘He is certainly _nearer_ if propinquity counts for anything;’ rejoined Geometrus dryly; ‘of course, then, I am to understand that the man who has bowled out the whole Universe, has played it low on me: in other words, I am nowhere _now_?’ ‘That is so,’ said Mercia, ‘I now know what love is, for he has taught me, where thou didst fail. Thou hadst no power to impart this knowledge to my understanding. When I look back, I see that Friendship only inspired my thought for thee. I should have continued all my life searching the Heavens, and worrying out the secrets of Nature had I not met my Marrow, my Ideal, my Fate!’ ‘All three represented in the person of Swami?’ added Geometrus cynically. ‘Even so,’ answered Mercia, taking no notice of his derisive tone. ‘In a few days I leave this place, and thou Geometrus canst worthily fill it, and make thy name illustrious for ever.’ ‘And this is to be the end of my dream!’ he burst out in a voice choking with feeling. ‘The end of one, and the beginning of another,’ returned Mercia, ‘thou wilt yet be a great man, whom all men will honour. I leave thee a fair field and a free hand to accomplish this noble ambition.’ CHAPTER XIII ‘The providence that’s in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold; Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps; Keeps pace with thought, and almost like the Gods, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.’ _Troilus and Cressida._ As soon as the trial was concluded,—if the series of extraordinary scenes that took place in the court, could be so designated—the reporters rushed out _en masse_ to send their respective phonographs to the editors of the various journals they represented. Never before had they such a titbit to offer their employers as was now their good luck to possess. A love scene between their Emperor and his astronomer, delivered in a dialogue wherein the actual voices were reproduced was a treat not to be met with every day. At least a hundred delicate voice-recorders had caught the sound-waves from Sadbag’s phonograph, and borrowing the tones of Felicitas and Mercia in their never-to-be-forgotten colloquy, gave them a value unprecedented in all time. As soon as it got abroad that their proprietors were in possession of these treasures, hundreds of speculators offered enormous prices for their purchase, with a view of reeling out their contents to admiring and appreciative audiences throughout the globe. These offers proved, indeed, too tempting to be resisted, so that in the course of a week or two, India, together with many distant parts, was in the enjoyment of the actual love scene that took place at Greenwich Observatory, the most unlikely of all places for such an incident to happen in.