As thus he pondered he felt a slight shock himself. A warm weight struck him and cuddled beside him. A dog had joined him, most surprisingly silent and friendly. Why, this was a welcome! This was a chunk of living euxenite, the mineral whose name means hospitable to strangers, even when the strangers are such odd creatures as titanium and germanium. But the collie’s warm silence stirred a memory. The girl had said that she never mentioned explosives in her father’s presence. Evidently the brother had perished by some explosion, probably of ammunition, and the very thought of detonations renewed the old man’s grief. The proper thing would be to remove the old man to some other and better farm, and to buy his place as barracks for the quarrymen. If the old man owned the island he would doubtless sell both island and farm for ten thousand. If not, Marvin would gladly add his own four thousand, now that he had set eyes on Jean Winifred Rich. Having neatly settled it all, he felt moved to go immediately and set eyes on her again. So down he sprang, and the dog followed him, and together they walked up to the house bent on conquest. He knocked, and she came to the door. “My name is Mahan, and I am looking for Miss Rich.” “Won’t you come in, Mr. Mahan?” He entered, and stood paralyzed. Instead of a farm-house sitting room with a hanging lamp and a melodeon, this was a noble library. The smooth-hewn walls were lined with books, with one or two bronzes above them. At the north end was a fireplace with crackling birch, and near it stood an upright rosewood piano, very small and old, but so well kept that he could have sworn it was in tune. No signs of poverty here except in that old haircloth couch, which certainly needed new springs. She motioned him to a seat, and he obeyed as in a dream. He was sitting in the library of some old scholar. He had come about as near to guessing father as Sir William came when he guessed quinine and discovered mauve. He clung to the collie and for the first time understood what bashfulness is like. “Wonderful dog,” he said at last. “Yes, Agricola has his points.” The young man searched his memory in vain, like one who has laboriously primed himself to listen to the converse of specialists, only to be left behind at the first sentence. Yet “Agricola” sounded strangely familiar. He reckoned it was one of Julius Caesar’s men, the one perhaps that built a bridge across a French river. “Did you call on business?” “Why, yes. Miss Rich. I’m on my way to the fish market. I understand that perch are selling very reasonably this morning—eighty cents a pound, if the market report is correct—and I wished to order, say, ten pounds.” She looked at him demurely. “I keep the market myself, but I’m out of perch. The hotel took them all.” “Could I—could you direct me to the hotel?” “You are in the lobby now.” “You mean I can actually stay to dinner if I have the price?”