Not many months after the publication of the “History of the Upper World” there occurred a vastly more important event. At least, it was vastly more important to me, and constituted the most fortunate episode of all my life in Atlantis. Ever since that encouraging talk with Aelios in “The Temple of the Stars,” I had been drawing gradually nearer to her; and by slow and unconscious degrees, so subtle that we ourselves could hardly note the change, we seemed to be entering upon the rôle of lovers. There was no emotional demonstration, and no deliberate reference to love, for in Atlantis it was considered undignified to express any casual amorous sentiments; but at times, in her eyes I would catch that reassuring look I had noted at rare intervals before, and in our increasingly frequent meetings, her manner seemed to be tinged by something indefinably wistful and yet indefinably gentle, that I had not previously observed. It might be imagined that the appearance and wide discussion of my book would have had an adverse effect upon her; but, fortunately, I had shown her many chapters before publication, and the contents were no surprise to her. And while she was at one with her people in loathing the upper world, she could hardly blame me for the conditions I depicted. Indeed, she was soon to give proof that she did not consider me in the least a partner in the supposed backwardness of my race. I do not now recall the precise circumstances that led up to the climax; I only know that it was on one of my numerous visits to her home, when we were alone together in the tapestried room of the pale blue lanterns. Nothing had suggested to me in advance that our interview today was to differ from our previous interviews, and certainly nothing could have suggested such a thought to her; but somehow the conversation drifted into unexpected channels, and we found ourselves provocatively near the subject of love; and somehow her words (though I cannot now remember their trend) stirred up all my checked and slumbering emotions, forced down the barriers of my reserve, filled me with a sudden and unlooked-for courage, and urged my lips to frame words that I had not premeditated then. And almost as much to my own surprise as to hers, I found myself proposing that she marry me! But was my rashness appropriately punished? Far from it. What was my amazement, and what my delight, when she looked up at me with trustful, grave blue eyes and quietly consented! And yet it all seemed so simple that it might have been an everyday occurrence! She had taken my proposal almost as a matter of course, almost as if she had expected it; but at the same time the exalted and happy light in her eyes showed that she was far from indifferent. “I was not sure before,” she murmured, simply, after my first rapturous exclamations. “But now I am quite certain. We will be all in all to one another, will we not, my beloved?”