Then something happened, which was in the world of ideas much more dramatic than the fact that the little dog laughed. The professor of astronomy laughed. If the world of things had corresponded to the world of ideas, the leaves of the apple tree might have curled up in fear or the birds dropped out of the sky. It was rather as if the cow had laughed. Following on that curt and uncouth noise was a silence; and then the hand he had raised to his head abruptly rent off his big blue spectacles and showed his staring blue eyes. He looked boyish and even babyish. “I wondered whether you always wore them,” she said. “I should think they made that moon of yours look blue. Isn’t there a proverb or something about a thing happening once in a blue moon?” He threw the great goggles on the ground and broke them. “Good gracious,” she exclaimed, “you seem to have taken quite a dislike to them all of a sudden. I thought you were going to wear them till--well, till all is blue, as they say.” He shook his head. “All is beautiful,” he said. “You are beautiful.” The young woman was normally very lucid and decisive in dealing with gentlemen who made remarks of that kind, especially when she concluded that the gentlemen were not gentlemen. But for some reason in this case it never occurred to her that she needed defence; possibly because the other party seemed more defenceless than indefensible. She said nothing. But the other party said a great deal, and his remarks did not grow more rational. At that moment, far away in their inn-parlour in the neighbouring town, Hood and Crane and the fellowship of the Long Bow were actually discussing with considerable interest the meaning and possibilities of the new astronomical theory. In Bath the lecture-hall was being prepared for the exposition of the theory. The theorist had forgotten all about it. “I have been thinking a good deal,” Hilary Pierce was saying, “about that astronomical fellow who is going to lecture in Bath to-night. It seemed to me somehow that he was a kindred spirit and that sooner or later we were bound to get mixed up with him--or he was bound to get mixed up with us. I don’t say it’s always very comfortable to get mixed up with us. I feel in my bones that there is going to be a big row soon. I feel as if I’d consulted an astrologer; as if Green were the Merlin of our Round Table. Anyhow, the astrologer has an interesting astronomical theory.” “Why?” inquired Wilding White with some surprise. “What have you got to do with his theory?” “Because,” answered the young man, “I understand his astronomical theory a good deal better than he thinks I do. And, let me tell you, his astronomical theory is an astronomical allegory.” “An allegory?” repeated Crane. “What of?” “An allegory of us,” said Pierce; “and, as with many an allegory, we’ve acted it without knowing it. I realized something about our history, when he was talking, that I don’t think I’d ever thought of before.”