Part 29 (1/2)

”Interrupted _you_. Besides--”

”What?”

”I don't think you ought to,” she said.

Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind stirring the palms, the m.u.f.fled snoring of the professor, the faint whisper and crackle of the fire.

A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which crawled mult.i.tudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle within.

”See their tiny eyes glow!” she whispered. ”How their wings quiver!

And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us all.”

She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe, carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious fragrance filled the room.

”They're done,” she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. ”Help me to lift them out.”

Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it again.

”Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and come around the cabin?” she suggested, wiping her fingers on her handkerchief.

I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled, some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peac.o.c.k-blue edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to the gla.s.s.

”I don't suppose you know that the antennae of that silvery-winged moth are distinctly pectinate,” I said.

”Of course I do,” she said. ”I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard College.”

”What!” I exclaimed in astonishment. ”You've been through Barnard? You are a Doctor of Entomology?”

”It was my undoing,” she said. ”The department was abolished the year I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian.”

She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. ”I had to make my own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to self-sustenance.”

She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.

”I suppose you took me for an inferior?” she said. ”But do you suppose I'd flirt with you if I was?”

She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem of Andrew Lang:

”Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel, But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal.”

Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't know why.

The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.

Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.

”That's curious,” I said.