Father was laughing at our amazement. "The government built it for me. They were very kind--built it exactly as Hulda and I directed. They think it is the most bizarre affair in their world--as no doubt it is. Zetta lives here with us but she hates it. You do, don't you, Zetta?" "No," she said. Her gaze at him was affectionate, and again I saw that roguish, sidewise glance. A little witch, fascinating. "Oh, no," she added. "I grow used to it now. But at first it was ver' terrible." We were at the garden gate, which father had flung wide. "Come in," said Hulda. "Dan, when you see how father has fixed it up--the trouble everybody went to, trying to make things look like earth. Oh, if we could only welcome you all at a time less critical--frightening. Xenephrene is really very beautiful around here, Dan--" We mounted the metallic veranda and entered the living room. It held a soft illumination of yellow-white light. Grass matting on the floor. A polished wooden table--wood queerly porous; on the table a fabric doily; a lamp of skin like the lantern father was carrying; and his writing materials. Furniture about the room, chairs of wood, with cane seats. A metallic bowl, with water and flowers. Cushions on some of the chairs. On the floor, a huge cushion bound circular with a fabric rope; I surmised it to be a seat for Zetta. On a chair near an inner doorway lay a feminine garment which Hulda snatched away. Father gazed around him proudly. "Not bad, is it? Come on. I'll show you the rest of the place, and then put you to bed. You must, all of you, be exhausted--" "I'm not tired," Freddie declared. And added, like a child: "I don't want to go to bed." "Well, you're going," said father. "I'll give you till dawn." Dan demanded, "How long is that?" "Five or six hours. It will be dark when I wake you up." His arm went around my shoulders affectionately. "It's good to have you with us, Peter. There is a great deal I have to say--but more which we'll have to do." His voice turned very solemn. "Things have reached a crisis here. It has come--more quickly than I thought." Zetta said: "My people have made a mistake--if now they will listen to you--" "They'll listen to me to-morrow," he said grimly. "If it isn't too late. We mustn't get into any discussion now--get these poor travelers to sleep." It did not seem to me that Freddie or Dan or myself could possibly sleep, with all these new, strange things whirling in our heads. But we certainly did. In an upper bedroom, upon beds which might have been on earth, with bedroom windows open wide to the scented night, I closed my eyes and in a moment drifted off. In the silence and darkness, the crimson unreal things lurked around me. But they now seemed friendly visions; my closed eyes shut them out; my ears heard their faint murmurs, but they lulled me.