Had I realized then the import of her fears, my pardonable elation would have been chilled indeed. “When shall I really know how men live under this civilization?” I asked eagerly. “This evening,” Acquilla answered, “I shall take you to the Promenade of the Males, but before that, I shall give you a great sensation.” “Where now?” “We are going to the great Astrodrome in the Berkshire valley.” Acquilla took up the telephone and gave the order to the machinot. Instantly the aeroplane turned towards the northeast and shot off at a speed of a thousand miles an hour; yet so easy was the motion that only the slipping by of the landscape below betrayed our vertiginous pace. CHAPTER XV I was prepared of course, to find a great observatory far surpassing our feeble edifices, but accustomed as I was now to the stupendous, I could not resist an exclamation of amazement. Below us in the pleasant valley of the Housatonic was what I at first took to be batteries of gigantic siege guns on immense concrete emplacements. “They must be telescopes of course,” I said recovering from my stupefaction. “But if you were to tell me that the war of the worlds was imminent and that you were preparing against an invasion of the Martians--I could easily believe you.” “Always thinking in terms of war! How like a man!” said Acquilla, but with the affectionate superiority that in my day the husband was gratified to show his wife. “As you surmised they are great telescopes, at least seventy in number, but as you will see, they are also immense inter-stellar radio receiving stations as well as transmitters.” “You have communicated with Mars!” I exclaimed, flushing with excitement. “Mars? That would be pastime for children, but wait and learn for yourself.” We began to settle gently on the great common and despite every intention to repress my amazement, I remained gazing open-mouthed. Seen from below, the mammoth proportions of these cupolas and stretching barrels, dwarfed the imagination. Several of the telescopes were two to three thousand feet in length, so grim, so formidable and so menacing in their confrontation of the firmament above, that were they instruments of destruction I could well imagine them capable of blotting out the moon in a single terrific blast. We approached the principal observatory which was so vast that St. Peter’s might have formed an ante-room. “When you enter here,” said Acquilla, “enter in reverence. To us, it is a temple in which lie the illimitable mysteries of what the human mind can achieve.” I saw her eyes lit with visions and her cheeks suffused with emotion. I, myself, felt the contagion and with quickened pulses, followed her into the great dome of what I found to be the central recording station. Around the great hall were written in letters of gold, six feet high, the famous prophecy of Manfreda: WHATEVER WOMAN CAN CONCEIVE IN HER IMAGINATION SHE WILL ACHIEVE BY HER WILL