A Honeymoon in Space Read Free

at Banff up in the Canadian Rockies. We made a travellers’ acquaintance, and he told me about this idea of his. I was very much interested, but I’m afraid I must confess that I might not have taken it up practically if the Professor hadn’t happened to possess an exceedingly beautiful daughter. However, of course I’m pretty glad now that I did do it; though the experiments cost nearly five thousand pounds and the craft herself close on a quarter of a million. Still, she is worth every penny of it, and I was bringing her over to offer to Miss Rennick as a wedding present, that is to say if she’d have it—and me.”
    Captain Hawkins looked up and said rather seriously:
    â€œThen, my Lord, I presume you don’t know—”
    â€œDon’t know what?”
    â€œThat Miss Rennick is crossing in the care of Mrs. Van Stuyler, to be married in London next month.”
    â€œThe devil she is! And to whom, may I ask?” exclaimed his lordship, pulling himself up very straight.
    â€œTo the Marquis of Byfleet, son of the Duke of Duncaster. I wonder you didn’t hear of it. The match was arranged last fall. From what people say she’s not very desperately in love with him, but—well, I fancy it’s like rather too many of these Anglo-American matches. A couple of million dollars on one side, a title on the other, and mighty little real love between them.”
    â€œBut,” said Redgrave between his teeth, “I didn’t understand that Miss Rennick ever had a fortune; in fact I’m quite certain that if her father had been a rich man he’d have worked out his invention himself.”
    â€œOh, the dollars aren’t his. In fact they won’t be hers till she marries,” replied the Captain. “They belong to her uncle, old Russell Rennick. He got in on the ground floor of the New York and Chicago ice trusts, and made millions. He’s going to spend some of them on making his niece a Marchioness. That’s about all there is to it.”
    â€œOh, indeed!” said Redgrave, still between his teeth. “Well, considering that Byfleet is about as big a wastrel as ever disgraced the English aristocracy, I don’t think either Miss Rennick or her uncle will make a very good bargain. However, of course that’s no affair of mine now. I remember that this Russell Rennick refused to finance his brother when he really wanted the money. He made a particularly bad bargain, too, then, though he didn’t know it; for a dozen crafts like that, properly armed, would simply smash up the navies of the world, and make sea-power a private trust. After all, I’m not particularly sorry, because then it wouldn’t have belonged to me. Well now, Captain, I’m going to ask you to give me a bit of breakfast when it’s ready, and then I must be off. I want to be in Washington to-night.”
    â€œTo-night! What, twenty-one hundred miles!”
    â€œWhy not?” said Redgrave; “I can do about a hundred and fifty an hour through the atmosphere, and then, you see, if that isn’t fast enough I can rise outside the earth’s attraction, let it spin round, and then come down where I want to.”
    â€œGreat Scott!” remarked Captain Hawkins inadequately, but with emphasis. “Well, my Lord, I guess we’ll go down to breakfast.”
    But breakfast was not quite ready, and so Lord Redgrave rejoined Miss Rennick and her chaperon on deck. All eyes and a good many glasses were still turned on the Astronef , which had now moved a few feet away from the liner’s side, and was running along, exactly keeping pace with her.
    â€œIt’s so wonderful, that even seeing doesn’t seem believing,” said the girl, when they had renewed their acquaintance of two years before.
    â€œWell,” he replied, “it would be very easy to convince you. She shall come alongside again, and if you and Mrs. Van Stuyler