I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled, some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to the glass. "I don't suppose you know that the antennae of that silvery-winged moth are distinctly pectinate," I said. "Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard College." "What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You are a Doctor of Entomology?" "It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian." She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to self-sustenance." She looked up, a flush on her cheeks. "I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose I'd flirt with you if I was?" She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem of Andrew Lang: "Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel, But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal." Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't know why. The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower. Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left the window-pane, darting off in the darkness. "That's curious," I said. "What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?" "I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!" A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible. "Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered. The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there. We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and carried them into my room. Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand, and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her room and softly closed the door. And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other, eating slice after slice of apple-pie. XVII