Stephen’s face relaxed a very little at this. His eyes searched his father’s, deeply and gravely, with an intense wary seriousness, as a white traveler, lost in a jungle amongst savages, might search the eyes of one of the tribe who offered a friendly aspect. Could he be trusted? Or was this just another of their cannibalistic wiles? “I like your Teddy fine,” continued Lester, conversationally. “I always liked the way he snuggles up to you in your bed. I used to wake up and look over at him sometimes. But I’m afraid I’m too old to play with him, myself.” At the mention of Teddy’s sleeping beside him, Stephen looked away and down into the bright, opaque eyes of his fetish, and as he did this, his father felt an acute shock of surprise. The child’s face was passionately tender and loving. He looked as his own mother had looked when she held her first baby in her arms. Lester was so astonished that he was obliged to wait a moment before he could command his voice to casual negligence. “So you don’t remember what it was you were going to ask me about Teddy?” he said, presently. “Well, it _was_ quite a while ago.” So far he had not induced Stephen to say a single word. That was always Stephen’s way of resisting talk, and persuasion, and attempts to reach him. Lester held his book up again and waited. He waited a long time. But waiting was one thing which circumstances made easy for him. There was little else a paralyzed man could do. Stephen sat motionless, his face a blank, staring into space. His father felt the uncertainty and questioning going on under that self-protective front of stolidity. Presently, a long time afterwards, the little boy got up and came slowly towards his father’s bed. “Yes, I ’member what it was,” he said in a low tone, keeping his eyes fixed intently on the expression of his father’s face. “I wanted to ask you ... to ask you not to let Mother ...” his voice dropped to a solemn, quavering whisper, “... not to let Mother _wash_ Teddy.” Lester survived the entire and grotesque unexpectedness of this with no more sign of his amazement than a flicker of his eyelids. He considered a dozen different ways of advancing into the undiscovered country and rejected them all in favor of the neutral question, “Was Mother going to wash Teddy?” At this it all came out in a storm, the visit to the lady, the horrible, misshapen, shrunken Teddy there, Mother’s stealing Teddy away at night, the devouring dread in Stephen’s mind, a dread so great that it now overcame even his fierce pride and his anger, as he sobbed out at the last, “Don’t let him be washed, Father! _Don’t_ let him!” He raised his streaming eyes agonizingly towards his father, his whole face quivering.