pekoe.”

She laughed.

“For a soulless creature like a woman there is always food, eh?” she teased. “But a masculine intellect demands only spiritual sustenance?”

He laughed more naturally, as he met her mocking glance. “I must seem an awful fool to you,” he said somewhat sheepishly.

She shook her head, still smiling.

“Oh, no, I was merely thinking what a mixture of sullen boy and embittered cynic you are. Do you know you are a very odd person, indeed?”

He looked at once flattered and woebegone.

“I suppose it’s this damned forcing-house I’ve lived in.” He muttered as he sliced the bread rather clumsily, with his most unclumsy-looking hands. “Limelight doesn’t mellow, it scorches!” Then as he met her astonished gaze, he checked himself abruptly. “Bread and butter and cigarettes are all I can offer, unless the storm has whetted you sufficiently for bacon and eggs?”

She laughed a denial, and springing up, lifted the chuckling kettle off the hearth. The boy hurried to her assistance and their flesh met over the handle.

“So you’re a celebrity?” she thrust at him, as he took the kettle from her and placed it on a table. Beneath her scrutiny his features again became a mask, except for the eyes, which gleamed liquid in the firelight.

“You flatter me,” he laughed with forced lightness. “Must I decrease my importance and the romance of the occasion by revealing my humble identity?”

“No indeed!” exclaimed Anne, “that would spoil everything.”

But the odd little speech about the limelight had challenged her curiosity, and as she continued to observe him, that strange sense of familiarity which the first impression of his face had given, insinuated itself into her consciousness more securely.

“No,” she murmured without an appreciable pause. “Let’s just be two stray cats crawling into shelter from the rain.”

An expression of relief thawed his frozen young face.

“But the Persian must not be shocked if the alley-cat does not know how to behave and laps up his milk rudely.” He laughed as he poured out her tea, and handed her the bread and butter. For the moment he looked almost happy, altogether boyish. He seated himself on the other side of the table, and gazed into the fire, which crackled up into their faces with the officiousness of an elderly chaperon. Its self-conscious sputter neutralized the clamor of the rain and somehow pleased him.

“How elemental,” he threw out his hands in an expressive gesture. “A storm, a fire, and a cave,” he looked about the shadowy room whimsically. “A man and a woman—food—. We might be in the Stone Age.” His cynical gaze probed her.

Anne’s laugh was a rippling murmur.

“A moment ago we were cats. Our evolution has been rapid!”

She pushed aside her chair, rose, and walking quickly to the window, peered through the crooked panes, at the dusky woods beyond.

“The rain is letting up,” she announced briefly. “I must go home, or Regina will worry herself into a fever.”

His somber laugh rang harshly. “So you prefer cats to cavemen?” He joined her in a couple of lazy strides. “That isn’t at all up to date! May I inquire who is Regina, and still preserve our charming incognito?”

“She is my Italian maid. We are alone here this fall and she will be wild if I don’t hurry. She has been with me since I was a child and I’m scarcely allowed to breathe without her permission,” she replied rather more expansively than she had intended.

“Well, if you must!” he shrugged. “I suppose I ought to say something romantic about ‘ships that pass in the