"He's really an interesting fellow, Sis," explained Scott; "he exudes a sticky, viscous fluid from his pores which is slightly toxic. I'm going to try it on a Rose-beetle." Geraldine shuddered, but forced a smile, and, holding the imprisoned one with dainty caution, bore him to a palatial and porcelain-lined bath-tub, into which she shook him with determination and a suppressed shriek. That night at dinner Scott looked up at his sister with something of the old-time interest and confidence. "I was pretty sure you'd take an interest in all these things, sooner or later. I tell you, Geraldine, it will be half the fun if you'll go into it with us." "I want to," said his sister, smiling, "but don't hurry my progress or you'll scare me half to death." The tragic necessity for occupation, for interesting herself in something sufficient to take her out of herself, she now understood, and the deep longing for the love of all she had of kith and kin was steadily tightening its grip on her, increasing day by day. Nothing else could take its place; she began to understand that; not her intimacy with Kathleen, not even her love for Duane. Outside of these there existed a zone of loneliness in which she was doomed to wander, a zone peopled only by the phantoms of the parents she had never known long enough to remember--a dreaded zone of solitude and desolation and peril for her. The danger line marked its boundary; beyond lay folly and destruction. Little by little Scott began to notice that his sister evidently found his company desirable, that she followed him about, watching his so-called scientific pursuits with a curiosity too constant to be assumed. And it pleased him immensely; and at times he held forth to her and instructed her with brotherly condescension. He noticed, too, that her spirits did not appear to be particularly lively; there were often long intervals of silence when, together by the window in the library where he was fussing over his "Life History," she never spoke, never even moved from her characteristic attitude--seated deep in a leather chair, arms resting on the padded chair-arms, ankles crossed, and her head a trifle lowered, as though absorbed in studying the Herati design on a Persian rug. Once, looking up suddenly, he surprised her brown eyes full of tears. "Hello!" he said, amazed; "what's the row, Sis?" But she only laughed and dried her eyes, denying that there was any explanation except that girls were sometimes that way for no reason at all. One day he asked Kathleen privately about this, but she merely confirmed Geraldine's diagnosis of the phenomenon: "Tears come into girls' eyes," she said, "and there isn't anybody on earth who can tell a man why, and he wouldn't comprehend it if anybody did tell him."