She stared stupidly. So tense had been her strain that the words were
mere meaningless blows that left her quivering. He thought she had not
heard.

"Would you mind my pipe--and this very mild mixture?"

She blessed him for the respite.

"Smoke, of course!" she managed to say.

She watched him closely, still alert, as he stuffed the tobacco into his
pipe-bowl from a rubber pouch. Then he struck the match and in that
moment she suffered another shock. The little flame danced out of the
darkness, and wavering, upward shadows played over a face of utter
quietness. The relaxed shoulders drooped sideways in the chair, the body
placidly sprawled, one crossed leg gently waving. The shaded eye
surveyed some large and tranquil thought--and in that eye the soul sat
remote, aloof from her as any star.

She sank back in her chair with a long, stealthy breath of relief--a
relief as cold as stone. She had not felt before that there was a chill
in the wide sweetness of the night. Now it wrapped her round and slowly,
with a soft brutality, penetrated to her heart.

The silence grew too long. With a shrugging effort she surmounted
herself and looked again toward the alien figure looming unconcerned in
the gloom. A warm, super-personal sense of friendliness came upon her.
Her intellect awoke to inquiries. She began to question him of his days
away, and soon he was talking freely enough, between pulls of his pipe.