"Particularly before daylight," I said, more pointedly than before. "Oh, don't quizz, Frank," Jean protested. "I'll tell you all about it presently. I was just saying to Spoof, when your knock interrupted me, how much the wiser the Japanese are than we. They sit on the floor, as nature intended them to do, and how graceful they are! I am playing the part." "But not for that reason, I am afraid," said Spoof. "You see, I rejoice in only one chair, called 'easy' by way of courtesy. Miss Lane refused to sit in it while I stood, and I, of course, could not sit in it while she stood. So she solved a deadlock by sitting on the floor." Nothing very incriminating about all this. They were just chatting naturally; surely they couldn't be such actors as to stage this dialogue without a moment's notice. Still--I had had to knock the second time. . . . . . . "You have breakfasted?" Spoof inquired. "Why, I am afraid I must confess I haven't. I left home rather unexpectedly." I was not disposed to beat about the bush, and the commonplaceness of their talk irritated me. Surely here was a situation bad enough without making it worse by pretending there was nothing bad about it. Spoof glanced at a clock which chuckled away amiably on his wall. "We can have lunch within an hour," he said. With a fork he prodded something stewing on the stove. "Yes, the rabbit is almost done. By Jove, a good fat one! Fancy how they pick so lordly a living! Will you wait, or would you rather have a bite now? I can only give you bread and marmalade at once. You must be hungry." "No, I'm not hungry," I said, truthfully enough. The fact is, I couldn't keep my eyes off Jean. Now and again, when she didn't know I watched, her face seemed to take on something of melancholy; but mostly it was bright, responsive, vivacious. She seemed to fit so wonderfully--physically and mentally she fitted so wonderfully into Spoof's shack. She had laid her overshoes aside and as she sat the brown ribs of her homeknit stockings peeped over the top of a neatly laced boot. This was before the days of the frank revelations of our modern fashions. Her intertwined fingers shuttled slowly back and forth against each other; her lips were ruddy in the glow from the little brass lamp; her hair, parted in the middle and drawn into a wavy roll at the back of her head gave her a peculiarly girlish appearance. She was so young, so small, and withal so wise, so venturesome, so defiant. The place where my breakfast should have been contracted with a great yearning; a huge emptiness filled me. So we waited for the rabbit to stew, and Spoof and Jean chatted on. I was more the audience than one of the players. They were away into some dispute about atmospheric colorings; something that had to do with rainbows, sun-dogs, ice prisms, light radiation. It was beyond me; so obviously beyond me that Spoof had mercy and brought Jean back to earth.