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And she had cried out exultantly, “Why, tell him that I say——” But the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied, and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her face, out of her heart—feeling her eyes turn black with terror while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word “Live!”—surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting for, lying far away and still, schooled at last to patience, the reckless and the restless? Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she could feel her mind like some frantic little wild thing, racing, racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? “You, wise beyond wisdom, will never hold me—you will never hold me—you will never——”

And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted her eyes to Jerry’s ambassador.

“Will you please tell him—will you please tell him that I say—‘Contact’?”

“Contact?” He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender. “Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor harsh word—there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in aviation use that word; it is the signal that says—‘Now you can fly!’ You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?”