The last thing I remember was thinking of how we had said good night to Zetta and she had left us. On Xenephrene, gravity was almost the same as earth; in walking, I had noticed no difference. Zetta said good night to us at the doorway of one of the upper rooms. She turned and went through the doorway with a graceful leap. I think she knew it would startle us--I think she did it just for that reason. It carried her past the head of the stairs; she touched the balustrade lightly with a hand for balance as she went over it, and dropped the fifteen feet to the floor below. A fairy's leap, Dan had called it that in the moonlight of a Porto Rican night. But it seemed even more fantastic in these conventional interior surroundings of the house, the halls and the stairway. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of it. CHAPTER XII AT DAWN "We have an hour," said father. "There is a great deal I must tell you, but we must make it brief." "Kean will be coming at sunrise," Hulda said. "I'd have got you up earlier." "I slept like a watchman," said Dan jovially. "Your air here must have a drug in it--Hulda, what's the matter with your hair?" "The matter? Don't you like it?" "Well, but--it's turning gray. I mean--white!" Father said: "Look at mine--wholly white. There's something in the air here--it kills the pigment coloring. There's no one in this world with hair other than white." With father and Hulda, we were seated on the roof of Under Gardens. I had, I thought, been asleep only a moment when father came to awaken us. "Hulda is getting breakfast. Get up, you three." He added when we were fully awake, "You'll find you don't need as much sleep here as on earth." Hulda served us breakfast in a quaint simulation of the way she would have done it on earth. I would not pretend to describe the food. I was reminded of Dan's describing the involuntary grimaces Zetta had made at the food they served her in Porto Rico. There was a beverage which might have been either tea or coffee--a sweetish mixture of some herb; and the cooked flesh of what I hoped was an animal--and eggs. They were small, and queerly oblong in shape; I did not think it best to inquire into them too fully. "It's a very nice breakfast, Hulda," I said lamely, as we were finishing. "You'll get used to it," said father. "Come upstairs." It was dim on the roof top; the full moon was evidently low to its setting horizon; shafts of its purple light slanted down through the thick arch of vegetation. The flat roof of the house had a low metal parapet; paths between gleaming basins of flowers; and a small open area with comfortable chairs. We seated ourselves and father produced what were evidently home-made cigars. But they were not bad. "Well," said Dan, "this is mighty luxurious." In the moonlight I could see his great lazy length stretched in his chair. "Hulda, sit here by me."