"You said it wasn't the moon." "No," she said seriously, "it isn't." She paused, stroking the pony's neck thoughtfully. "Do you know, I actually was so frightened at nothing that I ran away this evening." "You were going over there?" He pointed toward the vague lights showing through the tents of his camp. "Why--yes. It isn't the most thickly populated part of the world about here, isn't it? White people aren't so plentiful here. At least I knew there were white men at those tents--that funny red-haired man and yourself. You see it was the only place about here where I knew I could find anybody who--what shall I say? Why, who doesn't belong in this weird atmosphere----It was uncanny over at our place this evening. At sunset the water in the swimming pool didn't seem to be water at all; it seemed molten gold; and the mosaic round it seemed to be made up of whitened bones, and back of that was the fringe of palms hiding the jungle. It suddenly seemed to me that the palms were there for that purpose, and that the jungle needed to be hidden; and the palms seemed to know it, for their fronds hung drooping, like the hands of weary, worn-out women, tired of concealing whatever it is that's Back There--in the jungle--on Palm Island." "You don't mind my talking, do you? It's a relief. I couldn't talk to any one over there. The whole place seemed to be suffocating. I had to talk. I'll tell you why; I wanted to go into the jungle and see what it is the palms hide back there at night. Isn't it ludicrous--or ghastly--whichever way you look at it?" "You aren't alone over there? Mrs. Livingstone is still there, isn't she?" "Yes, Aunty's still there. I'm safely chaperoned." She laughed with a note of hardness in her young voice. "What a chaperon! If she knew I was here talking to you I believe it would drive her mad. She guards me so closely--when it pleases her to do so." She laughed bitterly again. "That's why she brought me down here alone to--that house. I am beginning to understand Aunty. I never knew why she guarded me so carefully before. My mother died before I could remember. Aunty brought me up. She's my father's sister. She brought me up well, for her purpose. I've been in schools all my life it seems until last winter. Then she brought me out, in Washington. Since then--Society. You see, we haven't got money. People think we have, but we haven't. So I've been on display, set up by Aunty in one of society's shop windows, like goods in the Boardwalk booths at Atlantic City. Do you mind my rambling?" "Go on, please." "You don't know what such a life means. You're a producer; I've been a doll tricked out for inspection by the men who are rich enough to buy expensive dolls. But we've no money. Society asks about that first of all when--an Aunty is trying to put a doll up for sale: