t all of her statements
were axioms, truths reduced to the simplest possible mental terms, and
that proof was unnecessary, if not impossible. So the topic went into
the discard.

"Been baking my brains over a lot of silly little exam questions,"
complained Peter. "Can you trace the circulation of the blood? I think
it leaves the grand central station through the right aorta, and then,
after a schedule run of nine minutes, you can hear it coming up the
track through the left ventricle, with all the passengers eager to get
off and take some refreshment at the lungs. I have the general idea, but
the exact routing gets me."

Cissie laughed accommodatingly.

"I wonder why it's necessary for everybody to know that once. I did. I
could follow the circulation the right way or backward."

"Must have been harder backward, going against the current."

Cissie laughed again. A girl's part in a witty conversation might seem
easy at first sight. She has only to laugh at the proper intervals.
However, these intervals are not always distinctly marked. Some girls
take no chances and laugh all the time.

Cissie's appreciation was the sedative Peter needed. The relief of her
laughter and her presence ran along his nerves and unkinked them, like a
draft of Kentucky Special after a debauch. The curves of her cheek, the
tilt of her head, and the lift of her dull-blue blouse at the bosom wove
a great restfulness about Peter. The brooch of old gold glinted at her
throat. The heavy screen of the arbor gave them a sweet sense of
privacy. The conversation meandered this way and that, and became quite
secondary to the feeling of the girl's nearness and sympathy. Their talk
drifted back to Peter's mission here in Hooker's Bend, and Cissie was
saying:

"The trouble is, Peter, we are out of our _milieu_." Some portion
of Peter's brain that was not basking in the warmth and invitation of
the girl answered quite logically:

"Yes, but if I could help these people, Cissie, reconstruct our life
here culturally--"

Cissie shook her head. "Not culturally."

This opposition shunted more of Peter's thought to the topic in hand. He
paused interrogatively.

"Racially," said Cissie.

"Racially?" repeated the man, quite lost.

Cissie nodded, looking straight into his eyes. "You know very well,
Peter, that you and I are not--are not anything near full bloods. You
know that racially we don't belong in--Niggertown."

Peter never knew exactly how th