"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee." "But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?" Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was all right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the situation. "Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop. "To buy her with beads." "To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming exasperated. "Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as you brought with you and gave me to board." Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy--my boy," he said. "Your boy!" said Susan. "Yes, my boy." Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity, and hopeless resignation. "Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I _did_ suppose you had some sense even in the view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to give up. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe your wife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that you believe that that is your boy--well!" Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macy wobbling in her wake. III SUSAN CLEGG SOLVES THE MYSTERY Susan Clegg and Mrs. Macy walked down to Mrs. Lathrop's gate, and out of her gate and to Miss Clegg's gate; the whole in a silence deadly and impressive. Mrs. Macy paused there. "I don't believe I'll come in," she said doubtfully. "I don't blame you," said Susan, "I wouldn't if it was me. Jathrop's boy, indeed! What kind of a man is it as'll have a Chinese family and go forcing them onto the true and long-tried friends of his one and only mother!" "I can't see why he didn't leave the boy in the Klondike," said Mrs. Macy slowly and reflectively. "I thought men always left their Chinese families just where they found 'em. It's strange Jathrop brought him home with him." "You see now what my dream meant," said Susan darkly, "a cat, indeed. It's small wonder I knew the cat was Jathrop Lathrop. Of all the mean, sly, creeping creatures that ever come up against the back of your legs sudden a cat is the worst. A snake is open and aboveboard beside a cat. You can see a snake. You don't see 'em often around here, thank heaven." "Well, we haven't seen Jathrop often around here for a long time," said Mrs. Macy, whose mind was as given to easy logical deduction as many of her mental caliber, "and we do see a lot of cats--you know that, Susan."