“Your father may like them.  I’ll have them hot for him.”

Jean lingered uncertainly.  She didn’t want the food, but she hated to leave the field to Hilda.  She unfastened her cloak, and sat down.  “How are you going to cook them?”

“Panned—­with celery.”

“It sounds good—­I think I’ll stay down, Hilda.”

“As you wish.”

The Doctor, coming in with his coat powdered with snow, found his daughter in a big chair in front of the library fire.

“I thought you’d be in bed.”

“Hilda has some oysters for us.”

“Fine—­I’m starved.”

She looked at him, meditatively, “I don’t see how you can be.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, on such a night as this, Daddy?  Food seems superfluous.”

He sat down, smiling.  “Don’t ever expect to feed any man over forty on star-dust.  Hilda knows better, don’t you, Hilda?”

Hilda was bringing in the tray.  There was a copper chafing-dish and a percolator.  She wore her nurse’s outfit of white linen.  She looked well in it, and she was apt to put it on after dinner, when she was in charge of the office.

“You know better than to feed a man on stardust, don’t you?” the Doctor persisted.

Hilda lifted the cover of the chafing-dish and stirred the contents.  “Well, yes,” she smiled at him, “you see, I have lived longer than Jean.  She’ll learn.”

“I don’t want to learn,” Jean told her hotly.  “I want to believe that—­that—­” Words failed her.

“That men can live on star-dust?” her father asked gently.  “Well, so be it.  We won’t quarrel with her, will we, Hilda?”

The oysters were very good.  Jean ate several with healthy appetite.  Her father, twinkling, teased her, “You see—?”

She shrugged, “All the same, I didn’t need them.”

Hilda, putting things back on the tray, remarked:  “There was a message from Mrs. Witherspoon.  Her son is on leave for the week end.  She wants you for dinner on Saturday night—­both of you.”

Doctor McKenzie tapped a finger on the table thoughtfully, “Oh, does she?  Do you want to go, Jeanie?”

“Yes.  Don’t you?”

“I am not sure.  I should like to build a fence about you, my dear, and never let a man look over.  Ralph Witherspoon wants to marry her, Hilda, what do you think of that?”

“Well, why not?” Hilda laid her long hands flat on the table, leaning on them.

Jean felt little prickles of irritability.  “Because I don’t want to get married, Hilda.”

Hilda gave her a sidelong glance, “Of course you do.  But you don’t know it.”

She went out with her tray.  Jean turned, white-faced, to her father, “I wish she wouldn’t say such things—­”

“My dear, I am afraid you don’t quite do her justice.”

“Oh, well, we won’t talk about her.  I’ve got to go to bed, Daddy.”

She kissed him wistfully.  “Sometimes I think there are two of you, the one that likes me, and the one that likes Hilda.”