Eugene turned towards her, wearing the sharp
edge of a smile. Not removing his eyes from her
face, he produced with deliberation a flat silver
box from a pocket, took therefrom a cigarette,
replaced the box, extracted a smaller silver box from
another pocket, shook out of it a fusee, slowly lit
the cigarette--this in a splendid silence, which he
finally broke to say, languidly, but with particular
distinctness:

"Ariel Tabor, go home!"

The girl's teeth stopped chattering, her lips
remaining parted; she shook the hair out of her eyes
and stared at him as if she did not understand, but
Joe Louden, who had picked up the banjo-case
obediently, burst into cheerful laughter.

"That's it, 'Gene," he cried, gayly. "That's the
way to talk to her!"

"Stow it, you young cub," replied Eugene, not
turning to him. "Do you think I'm trying to be
amusing?"

"I don't know what you mean by `stow it,' " Joe
began, "but if--"

"I mean," interrupted the other, not relaxing
his faintly smiling stare at the girl--"I mean that