calm. It was
she who introduced the subject of Banneker.

"Our quaint young station-agent seems to have abandoned his
responsibilities so far as I'm concerned," she observed.

"Because he hasn't come to see you?"

"Yes. He said he would."

"I told him not to."

"I see," said Io, after thinking it over. "Is he a little--just a wee,
little bit queer in his head?"

"He's one of the sanest persons I've ever known. And I want him to stay
so."

"I see again," stated the girl.

"So you thought him a bit unbalanced? That _is_ amusing." That the
hostess meant the adjective in good faith was proved by her quiet
laughter.

Io regarded her speculatively and with suspicion. "He asked the same
about me, I suppose." Such was her interpretation of the laugh.

"But he gave you credit for being only temporarily deranged."

"Either he or I ought to be up for examination by a medical board,"
stated the girl poutingly. "One of us must be crazy. The night that I
stole his molasses pie--it was pretty awful pie, but I was starved--I
stumbled over something in the darkness and fell into it with an awful
clatter. What do you suppose it was?"

"I think I could guess," smiled the other.

"Not unless you knew. Personally I couldn't believe it. It felt like a
boat, and it rocked like a boat, and there were the seats and the oars.
I could feel them. A steel boat! Miss Van Arsdale, it isn't reasonable."

"Why isn't it reasonable?'

"I looked on the map in his room and there isn't so much as a mud-puddle
within miles and miles and miles. Is there?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then what does he want of a steel boat?"

"Ask him."

"It might stir him up. They get violent if you question their pet
lunacies, don't they?"

"It's quite simple. Ban is just an incurable romanticist. He loves the
water. And his repository of romance is the catalogue of Sears, Roebuck
and Co. When the new issue came, with an entrancing illustration of a
fully equipped steel boat, he simply couldn't stand it. He had to have
one, to remind him that some day he would be going back to the coast
lagoons.... Does that sound to you like a fool?"

"No; it sounds delicious," declared the girl with a ripple of mirth.
"What a wonderful person! I'm going over to see him to-morrow. May I?"

"My dear; I have no control over your actions."

"Have you made any other plans for me to-morrow morning?" inquired Miss
Welland in a prim and social tone, belied by the dancing