The Girl in the Golden Atom by Ray Cummings (buy e reader txt) 📗

easily, and the Very Young Man, reclining on one elbow, with Aura at his feet, felt at peace with himself and with the world. Again he thought this girl the prettiest he had ever seen. There was something, too, of a spiritual quality in the delicate smallness of her features—a sweetness of expression in her quick, understanding smile, and an honest clearness in her steady gaze that somehow he seemed never to have seen in a girl's face before.

He felt again, now that he had time to think more of her, that same old diffidence that had come to him before when they were alone in the storeroom of her home. That she did not share this feeling was obvious from the frankness and ease of her manner.

For some time after leaving the island neither spoke. The Very Young Man felt the girl's eyes fixed almost constantly upon him—a calm gaze that held in it a great curiosity and wonderment. He steered steadily onward towards Orlog. There was, for the moment, nothing to discuss concerning their adventure, and he wondered what he should say to this girl who stared at him so frankly. Then he met her eyes, and again she smiled with that perfect sense of comradeship he had so seldom felt with women of his own race.

"You're very beautiful," said the Very Young Man abruptly.

The girl's eyes widened a little, but she did not drop her lashes. "I want to be beautiful; if you think it is so, I am very glad."

"I do. I think you're the prettiest girl I ever saw." He blurted out the words impetuously. He was very earnest, very sincere, and very young.

A trace of coquetry came into the girl's manner. "Prettier than the girls of your world? Are they not pretty?"

"Oh, yes—of course; but——"

"What?" she asked when he paused.

The Very Young Man considered a moment. "You're—you're different," he said finally. She waited. "You—you don't know how to flirt, for one thing."

The girl turned her head away and looked at him a little sidewise through lowered lashes.

"How do you know that?" she asked demurely; and the Very Young Man admitted to himself with a shock of surprise that he certainly was totally wrong in that deduction at least.

"Tell me of the girls in your world," she went on after a moment's silence. "My sister's husband many times he has told me of the wonderful things up there in that great land. But more I would like to hear."

He told her, with an eloquence and enthusiasm born of youth, about his own life and those of his people. She questioned eagerly and with an intelligence that surprised him, for she knew far more of the subject than he realized.

"These girls of your country," she interrupted him once. "They, too, are very beautiful; they wear fine clothes—I know—my brother he has told me."

"Yes," said the Very Young Man.

"And are they very learned—very clever—do they work and govern, like the men?"

"Some are very learned. And they are beginning to govern, like the men; but not so much as you do here."

The girl's forehead wrinkled. "My brother he once told me," she said slowly, "that in your world many women are bad. Is that so?"

"Some are, of course. And some men think that most are. But I don't; I think women are splendid."

"If that is so, then better I can understand what I have heard," the girl answered thoughtfully. "If Oroid women were as I have heard my brother talk of some of yours, this world of ours would soon be full of evil."

"You are different," the Very Young Man said quickly. "You—and Lylda."

"The women here, they have kept the evil out of life," the girl went on. "It is their duty—their responsibility to their race. Your good women—they have not always governed as we have. Why is that?"

"I do not know," the Very Young Man admitted. "Except because the men would not let them."

"Why not, if they are just as learned as the men?" The girl was smiling—a little roguish, twisted smile.

"There are very clever girls," the Very Young Man went on hastily; he found himself a little on the defensive, and he did not know just why. "They are able to do things in the world. But—many men do not like them."

Aura was smiling openly now, and her eyes twinkled with mischief. "Perhaps it is the men are jealous. Could that not be so?"

The Very Young Man did not answer, and the girl went on more seriously. "The women of my race, they are very just. Perhaps you know that, Jack. Often has my brother told us of his own great world and of its problems. And the many things he has told us—Lylda and I—we have often wondered. For every question has its other side, and we cannot judge—from him alone."

The Very Young Man, surprised at the turn their conversation had taken, and confused a little by this calm logic from a girl—particularly from so young and pretty a girl—was at a loss how to go on.

"You cannot understand, Aura," he finally said seriously. "Women may be all kinds; some are bad—some are good. Down here I know it is not that way. Sometimes when a girl is smart she thinks she is smarter than any living man. You would not like that sort of girl would you?"

"My brother never said it just that way," she answered with equal seriousness. "No, that would be bad—very bad. In our land women are only different from men. They know they are not better or worse—only different."

The Very Young Man was thinking of a girl he once knew. "I hate clever girls," he blurted out.

Aura's eyes were teasing him again. "I am so sorry," she said sadly.

The Very Young Man looked his surprise. "Why are you sorry?"

"My sister, she once told me I was clever. My brother said it, too, and I believed them."

The Very Young Man flushed.

"You're different," he repeated.

"How—different?" She was looking at him sidewise again.

"I don't know; I've been trying to think—but you are. And I don't hate you—I like you—very, very much."

"I like you, too," she answered frankly, and the Very Young Man thought of Loto as she said it. He was leaning down towards her, and their hands met for an instant.

The Very Young Man had spread his robe out to dry when he first got into the boat, and now he put it on while Aura steered. Then he sat beside her on the seat, taking the paddle again.

"Do you go often to the theater?" she asked after a time.

"Oh, yes, often."

"Nothing like that do we have here," she added, a little wistfully. "Only once, when we played a game in the field beyond my brother's home. Lylda was the queen and I her lady. And do you go to the opera, too? My brother he has told me of the opera. How wonderful must that be! So beautiful—more beautiful even it must be than Lylda's music. But never shall it be for me." She smiled sadly: "Never shall I be able to hear it."

An eager contradiction sprang to the Very Young Man's lips, but the girl shook her head quietly.

For several minutes they did not speak. The wind behind them blew the girl's long hair forward over her shoulders. A lock of it fell upon the Very Young Man's hand as it lay on the seat between them, and unseen he twisted it about his fingers. The wind against his neck felt warm and pleasant; the murmur of the water flowing past sounded low and sweet and soothing. Overhead the stars hung very big and bright. It was like sailing on a perfect night in his own world. He was very conscious of the girl's nearness now—conscious of the clinging softness of her hair about his fingers. And all at once he found himself softly quoting some half-forgotten lines: