When Jack had finished talking and had hung up the receiver, he leaned back against the shelf and watched her, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.  He still scowled—­but one got the impression that he was holding that frown consciously and stubbornly and not because his mood matched it.

Marion placed a cone at a point on the chart which was marked Greenville, aimed for Spring Garden and landed the cone neatly in the middle of Jack’s belt.

“Missed the pocket a mile,” he taunted grudgingly, hating to be pleasant and yet helpless against the girl’s perfect composure and good humor.

“Give it back, and I’ll try it again.  There’s a place called the Pocket.  I’ll try that, for luck.”  Then she added carelessly—­“What would have happened, if you hadn’t answered that man at all?”

“I’d have been canned, maybe.”

“Forevermore.”  She pretended to chalk her cue with a tiny powder puff which she took from a ridiculous vanity bag that swung from her belt.  “Wouldn’t you kind of like to be canned—­under the circumstances?”

“No, I wouldn’t.  I need the money.”  Jack bit his lips to keep from grinning at the powder-puff play.

“Oh, I see.”  She tried another shot.  “Why don’t you cut the legs off this table?  I would.  It’s miles too high.”

“I don’t monkey with government property, myself.”  He placed a peculiar accent on the last word, thus pointing his meaning very clearly.

“Now, what do you know about that?  Missed it—­with a government cone, shot by a government stick on a government table, while a government scowl fairly shrieks:  ‘Cut out this desecration!’” She chalked her cue gravely, powdered her nose afterward, using a round scrap of a mirror not much bigger than a silver dollar.  “Do you stay up here all the time and scowl, all by yourself?”

“All the time and scowl, all by myself.”  Jack took his hands from his pockets that he might light his pipe; which was a sign that he was nearly ready to treat the girl kindly.  “If you object to smoke—­” and he waved one hand significantly toward the open door.

“All the time—­all by yourself.  And you don’t want to be canned, either.”  With the pointer Marion drew aimless little invisible volutes upon the map, connecting the two spruce cones with an imaginary scroll design.  “How touching!” she said enigmatically.

“Sure, you’re heart-broken over the pathos of it.  I can see that.  You ought to put in about a week here—­that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Think I couldn’t?” She looked across at him queerly.

“You wouldn’t dare go any farther away than the spring.  You’d have to stay right here on this peak every minute of the twenty-four hours.  They call up at all kinds of ungodly times, just to see if you’re on the job, if they think you’re snitching.  They’d catch you gone sometime—­you couldn’t get by with it—­and then—­”