My new friend of the violet-scented breath hung back a little, then after looking at me demurely for a minute or two, like a child that chooses a new playmate, came softly up, and, standing on tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek.

It was not unpleasant, so I turned the other, whereon, guessing my meaning, without the smallest hesitation, she reached up again, and pressed her pretty mouth to my bronzed skin a second time.

Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, she ran an arm through mine, saying, "Comrade, from what country have you come?
I never saw one quite like you before." "From what country had I come ?" Again the frown dropped down upon my forehead.

Was I dreaming--was I mad?
Where indeed had I come from?
I stared back over my shoulder, and there, as if in answer to my thought--there, where the black tracery of flowering shrubs waved in the soft night wind, over a gap in the crumbling ivory ramparts, the sky was brightening.

As I looked into the centre of that glow, a planet, magnified by the wonderful air, came swinging up, pale but splendid, and mapped by soft colours--green, violet, and red.