I was then left alone with my bride, who remained half-seated, half-crouching on the cushions in a corner of the room.

I could not help feeling keenly how much a marriage so unceremonious and with so little previous acquaintance, or rather so great a reserve and distance in our former intercourse, intensified the awkwardness many a man on Earth feels when first left alone with the partner of his future life.

But a single glance at the small drooping figure half-hidden in the cushions brought the reflection that a situation, embarrassing to the bridegroom, must be in the last degree alarming and distressing to the bride.

But for her visit to the Astronaut we should have been almost strangers; I could hardly have recognised even her voice.

I must, however, speak; and naturally my first sentence was a half-articulate request that she would remove her veil.
"No," she whispered, rising, "_you_ must do that." Taking off the glove of her left hand, she came up to me shyly and slowly, and placed it in my right--a not unmeaning ceremony.