?" Thea asked in a low voice.

"Well, primarily, yes. But secondarily, why are we in Moonstone? It
isn't as if we'd been born here. You were, but Wunsch wasn't, and I
wasn't. I suppose I'm here because I married as soon as I got out of
medical school and had to get a practice quick. If you hurry things, you
always get left in the end. I don't learn anything here, and as for the
people--In my own town in Michigan, now, there were people who liked me
on my father's account, who had even known my grandfather. That meant
something. But here it's all like the sand: blows north one day and
south the next. We're all a lot of gamblers without much nerve, playing
for small stakes. The railroad is the one real fact in this country.
That has to be; the world has to be got back and forth. But the rest of
us are here just because it's the end of a run and the engine has to
have a drink. Some day I'll get up and find my hair turning gray, and
I'll have nothing to show for it."

Thea slid closer to him and caught his arm. "No, no. I won't let you get
gray. You've got to stay young for me. I'm getting young now, too."

Archie laughed. "Getting?"

"Yes. People aren't young when they're children. Look at Thor, now; he's
just a little old man. But Gus has a sweetheart, and he's young!"

"Something in that!" Dr. Archie patted her head, and then felt the shape
of her skull gently, with the tips of his fingers. "When you were
little, Thea, I used always to be curious about the shape of your head.
You seemed to have more inside it than most youngsters. I haven't
examined it for a long time. Seems to be the usual shape, but uncommonly
hard, some how. What are you going to do with yourself, anyway?"

"I don't know."

"Honest, now?" He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes.

Thea laughed and edged away from him.

"You've got something up your sleeve, haven't you? Anything you like;
only don't marry and settle down here without giving yourself a chance,
will you?"

"Not much. See, there's another rabbit!"

"That's all right about the rabbits, but I don't want you to get tied
up. Remember that."

Thea nodded. "Be nice to Wunsch, then. I don't know what I'd do if he
went away."

"You've got older friends than Wunsch here, Thea."

"I know." Thea spoke seriously and looked up at the moon, propping her
chin on her hand. "But Wunsch is the only one that can teach me what I
want to know. I've got to learn to do something well, and th