They were opposite his own house, and Dick, who had just opened the front door, heard him. "Oh," said Dick icily, when they came up to him. "So that's where you were. Uncle Jack"--for now he saw he had just cause for anger--"I'll thank you to let my hat alone." "Yes, Dick," said Raven meekly. "But I saw it and it's such a dandy hat." "Don't be rude to your only uncle," said Nan. She was slipping off her coat and Raven judged, seeing her so calm, that her evening pleased her. "Mother in there?" Raven inquired of Dick. He had hung up the pilfered coat and hat, with great nicety of care, in the hall closet. "No," said Dick. "She's gone to bed." The implication was that she shouldn't have been allowed to get bored enough to go to bed. "I'm going, too," said Nan. She gave her hand to Raven. "'Night, Rookie." Then she apparently remembered Dick, and shook her head at him. "Silly!" she commented. "Nobody'll love you if you behave like that." Dick did not answer. He turned about and went into the library, and Raven following, after he had seen Nan at the top of the stairs, found him reading a day-old paper with a studied absorption it was evident he was far from feeling. XVIII Dick tossed the paper aside and turned upon Raven who, taking his chair at the hearth, had bent to throw on a handful of light wood: the sticks that wake and change a room so completely that they might almost lighten the mood of the man their burning plays upon. "Look here," said Dick, "you put the devil into Nan. What do you do it for?" Raven looked up at him in a complete surprise. "No, I don't. The devil? Nan's got less to do with the devil than anybody you and I ever saw. She's kept herself unspotted. She's a child." This last he said of sudden intent for, having noted its effect on Milly, he wondered how it would strike Dick. "Oh, no, she isn't," said Dick, with bitterness. "Unspotted--yes, of course she is. But Nan knows her way about. She can play fast and loose with the rest of 'em." He stopped, conscious of talking too much, and ashamed of it. Raven remembered that quick interchange of ownership and repudiation between the two as they flashed back at each other in his library, those weeks ago, but he could not tell the boy Nan had kissed him out of her impetuous bounty only because the terrors of the time had lifted her beyond habit and because Dick's need was so great. She had put the draught of life to his lips, that was all. He remembered Monna Vanna going to the sacrificial tent, and his heart melted at the thought of woman's wholesale giving even when the act is bound to recoil upon herself alone.