He lay awake for a comparatively long while, as he had several times lately, divided between his consciousness and the regular breathing of his wife. If the past had brought Nettie Vollar to depend on him in some slight degree Taou Yuen did so absolutely: except for him she was lost in a strange world. Yet Taou Yuen didn't seem helpless in the manner of Nettie. He had once before thought of the former as finely tempered metal. Her transcendent resignation, with its consequent lack of sympathetic contact with the imperfect humanity of--well, Nettie, gave Taou Yuen a dangerous freedom from all that bound Salem in comparative safety. He dressed first, as usual, in the morning, while she stirred only enough to get her pipe and tobacco, on the floor at her side. Outside, the elms were losing their fresh greenness in the dusty film of midsummer; the Square held an ugly litter from the fireworks of last evening. William, too, was about, but he was uncommunicative, his brow scored in a frown. Their father, always down before the others, had returned from the inspection of his trees, and was tramping back and forth in the library. The elder seemed unrested by the night, his skin, as Rhoda had pointed out, was baggy. "Now that the _Nautilus_ is afloat again," Jeremy Ammidon said, "you'll want to be at sea." Examining this natural conclusion, Gerrit was surprised, startled, to find that it was no longer true. For the first time in his memory he was not anxious to be under sail. This of course was caused by a natural perplexity about Taou Yuen's comfort and happiness. "I don't know what the firm's plans are for me," he answered cautiously. "There is some talk of taking me out of the China trade for the California runs. I shouldn't like that." Jeremy was turning at his secretary, and he stopped to pound his fist on its narrow ledge. "It's that damned Griffiths again and his cursed jackknife hull!" he exclaimed. The dark tide suffused his countenance. Gerrit studied him thoughtfully: he didn't know just how much William had yet told their father about the sweeping changes taking place in Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone. He did see, however, that it was unwise to excite the old gentleman unduly. "I was saying only yesterday," he put in pacifically, "that you and myself are getting to be old models--" he broke off as William entered the library. The latter evidently grasped at once the subject of their discussion, for he went on in a firm voice somewhat contradicted by a restrained but palpable anxiety: