"Yes, sure." There was a desperate note in the boy's voice. "But she's not young. I mean for me--although, of course, she _looks_ young," he added, with a wild glance in her direction. "And she's not very--she isn't--" Mattern got up and put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Then if you feel that way about her and do as I ask, it will really be a favor to me." "Why should I do you a favor?" Alard demanded. His eyes darted back and forth like an animal that is beginning to realize it is caught in a trap. "To prove you're the better man," Mattern told him. "To heap coals of fire on my head. To prove that if there's bad blood in the family, it exists only in me." Alard didn't ask what Mattern wanted him to do. He knew already. * * * * * Mattern put it into words: "I want you to take her with you." "Take her," Alard repeated numbly. "Where?" "Anywhere she wants to go--to Earth or back to Erytheia, or any one of the planets she chooses." "Will she go with me?" Alard challenged. "You have to ask her; she has the right--" "Oh, I'll go with you, Alard," Lyddy interrupted joyfully. "I'd go with anybody right now, but especially you." "Even if you know I love you only as a sister?" "That's better than nothing," Lyddy said. "Besides, you could change your mind. I think you and me have a lot more in common than him and me." "I want to make sure there will always be someone to take care of her, to watch over her," Mattern told his brother. "Funny, I wouldn't have done what I did except for the sake of winning her, and now that I've won her, I can't hold her because of what I did to get her. But she was my dream and I want her to be cherished." "That's noble of you, Len," Lyddy said. "I'll think of you often, and I won't be mad at you." She got up and linked her arm in Alard's. "You'll take good care of me, won't you, hon?" But it was to his brother that Alard spoke. "I'll take good care of her," he promised, his voice thick with an emotion that was one part sentiment, one part resignation. "Splendid," Mattern said. "I wouldn't want her to be cast adrift. She knows so little of any of the worlds outside her own restricted sphere." "Sure," Alard replied miserably, "I understand. I'll do my best." Mattern got up and put out his hand and, after a little hesitation, Alard took it. "I hope in time you'll come to forgive me," Mattern said, "and that your hatred will dwindle into dislike, perhaps even tolerance." "Oh, I don't hate you any more," Alard assured him. "I guess, in your way, you've had as much to put up with as I did." He frowned in perplexity. "But why did it have to be me?" "You'll change your mind about that, too," Mattern said comfortably. "Lyddy is a very accomplished woman." VIII