Were these the heritage of man?
Would he ever visit them in some unknown state and age?
Or must they remain eternally far and alien?
This is what he longed to learn, and to him astronomy was a gateway to knowledge, if only he could discover how to pass the gate.
Godfrey had not the true scientific spirit, or a yearning for information, even about the stars, for its own sake.

He wanted to ascertain how these affected _him_ and the human race of which he was a member.

In short, he sought an answer to the old question: Are we merely the spawn of our little earth, destined to perish, as the earth itself must do one day, or, through whatever changes we must pass, are we as immortal as the universe and the Might that made it, whatever that may be?
That was his problem, the same which perplexes every high and thinking soul, and at this impressionable period of his life it scarcely ever left him.

There he would sit with brooding eyes and bent brow seeking the answer, but as yet finding none.
Once Juliette discovered him thus, having come to the observatory to tell him that his dinner had been waiting for half an hour, and for a while watched him unnoted with the little shaded lamp shining on his face.

Instantly, in her quick fashion, she christened him, _Hibou_, and _Hibou_ or Owl, became his nickname in that establishment.