or you first, hadn't I?"

"No, indeed! All I need is some fresh things."

Banneker set off at a brisk pace. He found the extravagant little
traveling-case safely closed and locked, and delivered it outside his
own door which was also closed and, he suspected, locked.

"I'm thinking," said the soft voice of the girl within. "Don't let me
interrupt your work."

Beneath, at his routine, Banneker also set himself to think; confused,
bewildered, impossibly conjectural thoughts not unmingled with
semi-official anxiety. Harboring a woman on company property, even
though she were, in some sense, a charge of the company, might be open
to misconceptions. He wished that the mysterious Io would declare
herself.

At noon she did. She declared herself ready for luncheon. There was
about her a matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation as natural, even
inevitable, which entranced Banneker when it did not appall him. After
the meal was over, the girl seated herself on a low bench which Banneker
had built with his own hands and the Right-and-Ready Tool Kit (9 T 603),
her knee between her clasped hands and an elfish expression on her face.

"Don't you think," she suggested, "that we'd get on quicker if you
washed the dishes and I sat here and talked to you?"

"Very likely."

"It isn't so easy to begin, you know," she remarked, nursing her knee
thoughtfully. "Am I--Do you find me very much in the way?'"

"No."

"Don't suppress your wild enthusiasm on my account," she besought him.
"I haven't interfered with your duties so far, have I?"

"No," answered Banneker wondering what was coming next.

"You see"--her tone became ruminative and confidential--"if I give you
my name and you report it, there'll be all kinds of a mix-up. They'll
come after me and take me away."

Banneker dropped a tin on the floor and stood, staring.

"Isn't that what you want?"

"It's evident enough that it's what _you_ want," she returned,
aggrieved.

"No. Not at all," he disclaimed. "Only--well, out here--alone--I don't
understand."

"Can't you understand that if one had happened to drop out of the world
by chance, it might be desirable to stay out for a while?"

"For _you_? No; I can't understand that."

"What about yourself?" she challenged with a swift, amused gleam. "You
are certainly staying out of the world here."

"This is my world."

Her eyes and voice dropped. "Truly?" she murmured. Then, as he made no
reply, "It isn't much of a w