When she came down to supper that night, Raven was reading his paper by the fire. He glanced up as if she came in so every night, Nan thought. She liked that. But she was a little awkward, conscious of her masquerade and so really adding to the illusion of girlhood, ill used to its own charm. Raven threw down his paper and got up. "Lord!" said he. "Come here, you witch. Let me look at you." Nan was actually shy now. "Why, my darling," said Raven, in a tone so moved she was almost sorry she had brought it all about. It made too many responsibilities. Which Nan was she going to be? ("But no kissing!" she reminded herself.) "You've come back to me." "I haven't been away," said Nan, recovering herself and treating him to a cool little nod, "not actually. Like it, Charlotte?" For Charlotte had come in with a platter, and Nan turned about, peacocking before her unsurprised gaze. "I found it up attic." "It's real pretty," said Charlotte. "Them scant things they're wearin' now, they ain't to be thought of in the same day." Then, having given the room a last glance (almost a caressing touch Charlotte had, a little anxious, too, because all comforts were so important) she went out, and Nan was sitting opposite Raven at the table, demure, self-contained, yet playing her wildest. It was a game she knew she was to have entirely alone. The game was that she and Rookie were living here in this house in some such potency of possessive bliss that nothing could separate them. She was careless over the terms of it. She was a child, she was a woman, she was everything Rookie wanted her to be. Here they were together, and the universe, finding the combination, Nan and Rookie, too strong to fight against, had given up the losing battle, turned sulkily and left them alone. They were hungry and in high spirits, and they ate and talked a great deal. Nan meant to remember what they talked about. Even the words were so dear to her she would have liked to set them down in a book to keep for her old age that was to be as desolate as Aunt Anne's. But it shouldn't be as conventional. There should be waves on that sea. Then Charlotte had come in to clear the table and afterward, by Raven's invitation, sat ten minutes or so by the fire and talked of neighborhood things, and they were left alone again, and he was suddenly grave. Was the game over, Nan wondered, and then went on into a more unbridled speculation whether he was finding himself reminded of the old scruples, the old withholdings when Aunt Anne, unable to keep up with their galloping horses of fun, restrained them delicately but with what a hand of steel! And suddenly she realized he was not thinking of her. Was the grim house over the rise of the road calling to his anxious heart? "Nan," he said, as if he had suddenly made up his mind, "I've got something to show you."