They had the preserves, and the white figs, too; figs that Teddy and Martie had knocked that morning from the big tree in the yard.  Lydia noticed with resentment that Pa had really brightened perceptibly under the unexpected stimulus.  It was Lydia who said mildly, almost reproachfully, “I’m sorry that I have to give you a rather small napkin, Mr. Dryden; we had company to dinner last night, and I find we’re a little short—­”

John hardly heard her; he saw nothing but Martie, and only rarely moved his eyes from her, or spoke to any one else.  He glowed at her lightest word, laughed at her mildest pleasantry; he frequently asked her family if she was not “wonderful.”

This was the attitude of that old lover of her dreams, and in spite of amusement and trepidation and nervous consciousness that she was hopelessly entangling her affairs, Martie’s heart began to swell, and her senses to feel creeping over their alertness a deadly and delicious languor.  She had been powerless all her life:  she thrilled to the knowledge of her power now.

Dean Silver easily kept the conversation moving.  They learned that he had been overworking, had been warned by his physician that he must take a rest.  So he and John were off for the Orient:  he himself had always wanted to sail up the Nile, and to see Benares.

“John, what a year in fairyland!” Martie exclaimed.

“Well, that’s what I tell him,” said the novelist.  “But he isn’t at all sure he wants to go!”

As John merely gave Martie an unmistakable look at this, she tried hurriedly for a careless answer.

“John, you would be mad not to go!”

“You and I will talk it over after awhile,” he suggested, with an enigmatic smile.

This was terrible.  Martie gave one startled look at Lydia, who had compressed her mouth into a thin line of disapproval.  Lydia was obviously thinking of Cliff, who might come in later.  Martie found herself unable to think of Cliff.

They had coffee in the garden, in the still summer dusk.  Teddy rioted among the bushes, as alert and strategic as was his gray kitten.  John sat silent beside Martie, and whenever she glanced at him she met his deep smile.  Lydia preserved a forbidding silence, but Malcolm’s suspicions of his younger daughter were pleasantly diverted by the novelist.  Dean Silver was probing into the early history of the State.

“But there must have been silver and gold mines up as far as this, then; aren’t you in the gold belt?”

“In the year 1858,” Malcolm began carefully, “a company was formed here for the purpose of investigating the claims made by—­”

John finished his coffee with a gulp, and walked across the dim grass to Martie, and she rose without a word.

“Martie, isn’t it Teddy’s bedtime?” asked Lydia.  John frowned faintly at her.

“Can’t you put him to bed?” he asked directly.  Lydia’s cool cheek flushed.