“And youth,” said the old gentleman to himself, “and an unconscious courage to surmount all obstacles.  But perhaps, after all, the unseen part of Applegate Farm is the more beautiful.”  Aloud, he said:  “Do you like to look at odd things?  That is—­I mean—­”

Kirk helped him out.  “I do like to,” he said.  “I look at them with my fingers—­but it’s all the same.”

Such things to look at!  They were deposited, one after the other, in Kirk’s eager hands,—­the intricate carving of Japanese ivory, entrancingly smooth—­almost like something warm and living, after one had held it for a few adoring moments in careful hands.  And there was a Burmese ebony elephant, with a ruby in his forehead.

“A ruby is red,” Kirk murmured; “it is like the fire.  And the elephant is black.  I see him very well.”

“Once upon a time,” said the old gentleman, “a rajah rode on him—­a rajah no bigger than your finger.  And his turban was encrusted with the most precious of jewels, and his robe was stiff with gold.  The elephant wore anklets of beaten silver, and they clinked as he walked.”

Kirk’s face was intent, listening.  The little ebony elephant stood motionless on his palm, dim in the firelight.

“I hear them clinking,” he said, “and the people shouting—­oh, so far away!”

He put the treasure back into his host’s hand, at last.  “I’d like, please, to look at you,” he said.  “It won’t hurt,” he added quickly, instantly conscious of some unspoken hesitancy.

“I have no fear of that,” said the voice, “but you will find little worth the looking for.”

Kirk, nevertheless, stood beside the old gentleman’s chair, ready with a quick, light hand to visualize his friend’s features.

“My hair, if that will help you,” the voice told him, “is quite white, and my eyes are usually rather blue.”

“Blue,” murmured Kirk, his fingers flitting down the fine lines of the old gentleman’s profile; “that’s cool and nice, like the sea and the wind.  Your face is like the ivory thing—­smooth and—­and carved.  I think you really must be something different and rather enchanted.”

But the old man had caught both Kirk’s hands and spread them out in his own.  There was a moment of silence, and then he said: 

“Do you care for music, my child?”

“I love Phil’s songs,” Kirk answered, puzzled a little by a different note in the voice he was beginning to know.  “She sings and plays the accompaniments on the piano.”

“Do you ever sing?”

“Only when I’m all alone.”  The color rushed for an instant to Kirk’s cheeks, why, he could not have said.