Bradley, seasoned old campaigner that he was, had retired promptly as soon as he had completed a series of observations, and was sleeping soundly upon a pile of cushions in the first of the three inter-connecting rooms. In the middle room, which was to be Clio's, Costigan was standing very close to the girl, but was not touching her. His body was rigid, his face was tense and drawn. "You are wrong, Conway; all wrong," Clio was saying, very seriously. "I know how you feel, but it's false chivalry." "That isn't it, at all," he insisted, stubbornly. "It isn't only that I've got you out here in space, in danger and alone, that's stopping me. I know you and I know myself well enough to know that what we start now we'll go through with for life. It doesn't make any difference, that way, whether I start making love to you now or whether I wait until we're back on Tellus; but I'm telling you that for your own good you'd better pass me up entirely. I've got enough horsepower to keep away from you if you tell me to--not otherwise." "I know it, both ways, dear, but...." "But nothing!" he interrupted. "Can't you get it into your skull what you'll be letting yourself in for if you marry me? Assume that we get back, which isn't sure, by any means. But even if we do, some day--and maybe soon, too, you can't tell--somebody is going to collect fifty grams of radium for my head." "Fifty grams--and everybody knows that Samms himself is rated at only sixty? I _knew_ that you were somebody, Conway!" Clio exclaimed, undeterred. "But at that, something tells me that any pirate will earn even that much reward several times over before he collects it. Don't be silly, my dear--goodnight." She tipped her head back, holding up to him her red, sweetly curved, smiling lips, and his arms swept around her. Her arms went up around his neck and they stood, clasped together in the motionless ecstasy of love's first embrace. "Girl, girl, how I love you!" Costigan's voice was husky, his usually hard eyes were glowing with a tender light. "That settles that. I'll really _live_ now, anyway, while...." "Stop it!" she commanded, sharply. "You're going to live until you die of old age--see if you don't. You'll simply _have_ to, Conway!" "That's so, too--no percentage in dying now. All the pirates between Tellus and Andromeda couldn't take me after this--I've got too much to live for. Well, goodnight, sweetheart, I'd better beat it--you need some sleep."