hen it came to her that by the time she had
something cooked and they had made the distance back to the lodge it
would be time for the dance, and therefore that this meal would have to
be supper at least. It was more fun than cooking in the kitchenette of
the apartment, because there was elbow-room. Marjorie's housewifely
soul had always secretly chafed under having to prepare food in a
kitchen that only half of you could be in at a time.

There was a trusty kerosene stove here, and a generous white-painted
cupboard full of stores and of dishes. She had another threatening of
emotion for a minute when she saw that the dishes were some yellow
Dutch ones that she remembered admiring. But she decided that it was
no time to feel pity--or indeed any emotion that would interfere with
meal-getting--and continued prospecting for stores. Condensed milk,
flour, baking-powder, and a hermetically-sealed pail of lard suggested
biscuits, if she hurried; cocoa and tins of bacon and preserved fruit
and potatoes offered at least enough food to keep life alive, if
Francis would only stay away the half-hour extra that he might.

Heaven was kind, and he did. The biscuits and potatoes were baked, the
fruit was opened and on the little brown table with the yellow dishes,
and the bacon was just frizzling curlily in the pan when Francis walked
into the kitchen.

If it seemed pleasantly domestic to him he was wise enough not to say
so. He only stated in an unemotional manner that there were eggs put
down in water-glass in the entry back; and as this conveyed nothing to
Marjorie he went and got some and fried them, and they had supper
together.

"You're a bully good cook," he told her, and she smiled happily.
Anybody could tell you that much, and it meant nothing. Sometimes
dealing with Francis reminded her of a Frank Stockton fairy-tale in her
childhood, where some monarch or other went out walking with a Sphinx,
and found himself obliged to reply "Give it up!" to every remark of the
lady's, in order not to be eaten.

"We won't have time to clear up much," was his next remark, looking
pensively at a table from which they had swept everything but one
biscuit and a lonely little baked potato which had what Marjorie termed
"flaws," and they had had to avoid. "But then, I suppose you might say
there wasn't much to clear. We'll stack these dishes and let Pierre or
somebody wash 'em. Us for the dance."

They piled the yellow dishes