For his predicament there are names enough, ancient and mostly unbelieved. We might say that he had fallen head over heels in love, except that she was not a butt of malmsey or a hollow tree full of honey. We might say that the minute she met him she pursed up his heart, except that she was not in the habit of carrying a purse. At first sight they had changed eyes, but what would that mean in terms of electricity? To be soberly modern we might say that he had yielded as easily as zinc yields its electrons to copper, plating it round and defending it forever. But the trouble is that Marvin had forgotten all his chemistry. There he stood, a man of lightning without one word of lightning at his command. There he stood, compounded of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, chlorine, potassium, calcium, iron, and iodine, and not one element had a characteristic thing to say. But he was swiftly coming to a conclusion just the same. He was reaching the upshot of response. In five minutes he had the resultant in the homely words of old romance. He loved this girl. He would love her and cherish her till death did them part. No lapse of years, no cancer, no disfigurement would make her less dear. He was in love and no mistake, and the first thing to do was to lock the lamp-house door. Chapter 31. Gallium Next he considered where he should camp. Not on this island, which though dry enough was low and bushy. The Duckling was the proper place. So he plunged into the dripping osiers and made his way to his boat, which he proceeded to overturn and empty of its share in the shower. Then he rowed round to the south and rested on his oars to survey the island that he intended to buy. But the minute he paused, business gave way to delicious thoughts the like of which he had never known. He had spent a life in training for the sight of her. He must have known all the time that she was there. Just as Mendeleyeff had prophesied an element like boron and an element like aluminum, so he had unconsciously known that there must be a girl as impassioned as Cynthia and as exquisitely self-contained as Gratia. Physically she was like neither, being little and brown and athletic, with eyes that thrilled him, and a short fine nose the pattern of which had never been thought of before. She had beauty and strength and mind and education—though where had she got the education? Having a tremendous respect for the law of probability, he conceived of her as a farmer’s daughter. But what sort of farmer was it who had sent his daughter far enough from home to learn of atoms and to quote poetry with ease?