A moment when, beyond the thought of the nearby brigand--or the
possibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my cubby--a
moment while Anita and I held each other, and whispered those things
which could mean nothing to the world, but which were all the world to
us!
Then it was she whose wits brought us back from the shining fairyland
of our love, into the sinister reality of the _Planetara_.
"Gregg, if they are listening--"
I pushed her away. This brave little masquerader! Not for my life, or
for all the lives on the ship, would I consciously have endangered
her.
"But Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his message--see here,
Prince--"
Coniston was too far away on the deck to hear us. Anita went to my
door again and waved at him reassuringly. I put my ear to the door
opening and listened at the space across the grid of the ventilator
over my bunk. The hum of a vibration would have been audible at those
two points. But there was nothing.
"It's all right," I whispered, and she clung to me--so small beside
me. With the black robe thrown aside, it seemed that I could not miss
the curves of her woman's figure. A dangerous game she was playing.
Her hair had been cut short to the base of her neck, in the fashion of
her dead brother. Her eyelashes had been clipped: the line of her
brows altered. And now, in the light of my tube as it shone upon her
earnest face, I could remark other changes. Glutz, the little beauty
specialist, was in this secret. With plastic skill he had altered the
set of her jaw--put masculinity here.