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 something about a thing happening once in a blue moon?"

He threw the great goggles on the ground and broke them.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "you seem to have taken quite a dislike to them all of a sudden. I thought you were going to wear them till—well, till all is blur, as they say."

He shook his head. "All is beautiful," he said. "You are beautiful."

The young woman was normally very lucid and decisive in dealing with gentlemen who made remarks of that kind, especially when she concluded that the gentlemen were not gentlemen. But for some reason in this case it never occurred to her that she needed defence; possibly because the other party seemed more defenceless than indefensible. She said nothing. But the other party said a great deal, and his remarks did not grow more rational. At that moment, far away in their inn-parlour in the neighbouring town, Hood and Crane and the fellowship of the Long Bow were actually discussing with considerable interest the meaning and possibilities of the new astronomical theory. In Bath the lecture-hall was being prepared for the exposition of the theory. The theorist had forgotten all about it.