"I promise not to be angry if you will only show me the way that in the end will lead me to ancient graybeards like you and Graham." Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, penetrated the library, and, while selecting half a dozen reference volumes on mechanics and physics, smiled as if pleased with himself at recollection of the interview with his sister-in-law. He was confident that he had spoken in time and not a moment too soon. But, half way up the book-concealed spiral staircase that led to his work room, a remark of Ernestine, echoing in his consciousness, made him stop from very suddenness to lean his shoulder against the wall.--_"Paula would be more his kind."_ "Silly ass!" he laughed aloud, continuing on his way. "And married a dozen years!" Nor did he think again about it, until, in bed, on his sleeping porch, he took a glance at his barometers and thermometers, and prepared to settle down to the solution of the electrical speculation that had been puzzling him. Then it was, as he peered across the great court to his wife's dark wing and dark sleeping porch to see if she were still waking, that Ernestine's remark again echoed. He dismissed it with a "Silly ass!" of scorn, lighted a cigarette, and began running, with trained eye, the indexes of the books and marking the pages sought with matches. CHAPTER XV It was long after ten in the morning, when Graham, straying about restlessly and wondering if Paula Forrest ever appeared before the middle of the day, wandered into the music room. Despite the fact that he was a several days' guest in the Big House, so big was it that the music room was new territory. It was an exquisite room, possibly thirty-five by sixty and rising to a lofty trussed ceiling where a warm golden light was diffused from a skylight of yellow glass. Red tones entered largely into the walls and furnishing, and the place, to him, seemed to hold the hush of music. Graham was lazily contemplating a Keith with its inevitable triumph of sun-gloried atmosphere and twilight-shadowed sheep, when, from the tail of his eye, he saw his hostess come in from the far entrance. Again, the sight of her, that was a picture, gave him the little catch-breath of gasp. She was clad entirely in white, and looked very young and quite tall in the sweeping folds of a _holoku_ of elaborate simplicity and apparent shapelessness. He knew the _holoku_ in the home of its origin, where, on the _lanais_ of Hawaii, it gave charm to a plain woman and double-folded the charm of a charming woman. While they smiled greeting across the room, he was noting the set of her body, the poise of head and frankness of eyes--all of which seemed articulate with a friendly, comradely, "Hello, friends." At least such was the form Graham's fancy took as she came toward him. "You made a mistake with this room," he said gravely. "No, don't say that! But how?" "It should have been longer, much longer, twice as long at least."