She stared at him a contemplative instant so steadily that he coloured. She was not seeing him, however; she was seeing Keith, standing with his fellows in the open, under the walls of the jail and its hidden guns. With a short laugh she turned away. "You were," said she. "Help yourself to tea. As you say, I am overwrought. I am going to lie down." Her one compelling instinct now was to get away from him before something in her brain snapped. He became soothing. "Won't you have a cup of tea first?" he urged. "It will do you good." "A cup of tea!" she repeated with deadly calm. It seemed such an ending to such a day! She tried to laugh, but strangled in her throat; and she bolted wildly from the room, leaving Ben Sansome staring. LXII Nan's high exaltation of spirit, which still soared at the altitude to which the events of the afternoon had lifted it, next expressed itself in a characteristically feminine manner: she picked flowers in the garden, arranged them, placed them effectively, set the table herself, lighted the lamps, touched a match to the wood fire always comfortable in San Francisco evenings, slightly altered the position of the chairs, visited Wing Sam with fresh instructions. Gringo, who looked on all this as for his especial benefit, took his place luxuriously before the grate. It was a cozy, homelike scene. Then she dressed slowly and carefully in her most becoming gown--the only gown Keith had ever definitely singled out for individual praise--took especial pains with her hair, and finally descended to join Gringo. The latter, as a greeting intended to show his entire confidence, promptly rolled over to expose his vitals to her should it be her pleasure to hurt a poor defenceless dog. He was a ridiculous sight, upside down, his tongue lolling out, his eye rolled up at her adoringly. She laughed at him a little, then leaned swiftly over to confide something in his ear. But that evening Keith was late. The clock on the mantel chimed clearly the hour, then the quarter and the half. Wing Sam came to protest aggreivedly that "him glub catchum cold--you no wait!" Nan was severe with Wing Sam and his suggestion--so unwontedly severe that Wing Sam returned to the kitchen muttering darkly. He had caught the atmosphere of celebration, somehow, and on his own-initiative had frosted with wonderful white a cake not yet cut, and on the cake had carefully traced pink legends in Chinese and English characters. The former was one of those conventional mottoes seen on every laundry, club, and temple which would have translated "Health, long life, and happiness"; the other Wing Sam had copied from a lithograph he much admired. It read "Use Rising Sun Stove Polish." Glowering with resentment, Wing Sam scraped the frosting from the cake.