ared the blade. The click
of it leaving the flat, hollow handle sounded loud in the stillness of
the room.

A moment. Then it seemed that outside my window a shadow had moved. I
crept along the floor. Rose up suddenly at the window.

And stared at a face peering in at me. A small face, framed by short,
clustering, dark curls.

A girl!

CHAPTER III

_In a Moonlit Garden_

She drew back from the window like a startled fawn; timorous, yet
curious, too, for she ran only a few steps, then turned and stood
peering. The moonlight slanted over the western roof of the building and
fell on her. A slight, boyish figure in short, tattered trousers and a
boy's shirt, open at her slim, rounded throat. The moonlight gleamed on
the white shirt fabric to show it torn and ragged. Her arms were
upraised; her head, with clustering, flying dark curls, was tilted as
though listening for a sound from me. A shy, wild creature. Drawn to my
window; tapping to awaken me, then frightened at what she had done.

I opened the garden door. She did not move. I thought she would run, but
she did not. The moonlight was on me as I stood there. I was conscious
of its etching me with its silver sheen. And twenty feet from me this
girl stood and gazed, with startled eyes and parted lips--and white
limbs trembling like a frightened animal.

The patio was very silent. The heavy arching fronds stirred slightly
with a vague night breeze; the moonlight threw a lacy dark pattern of
them on the gray stone path. The fountain bowl gleamed white in the
moonlight behind the girl, and in the silence I could hear the low
splashing of the water.

A magic moment. Unforgettable. It comes to some of us just once, but to
all of us it comes. I stood with its spell upon me. Then I heard my
voice, tense but softly raised.

"Who are you?"

It frightened her. She retreated until the fountain was between us. And
as I took a step forward, she retreated further, noiseless, with her
bare feet treading the smooth stones the path.

* * * * *

I ran and caught her at the doorway of the flowered pergola. She stood
trembling as I seized her arms. But the timorous smile remained, and her
eyes, upraised to mine, glowed with misty starlight.

"Who are you?"

This time she answered me. "I am called Jetta."

It seemed that from her white forearm within my grasp a magic current
swept from her to me and back again. We humans, for all ou