was there staring at me. Somebody
was--" Billy paused. He swallowed rapidly and wet his lips. "But it
wasn't Kilo." Billy paused again.

"I'm listening, bo," said Honey, shying another stone.

"It was a girl looking at me," Billy said, simply as though it were
something to be expected. He paused. Then, "Get that? A girl! She was
bending over me--pretty close--I could almost touch her. I can see her
now as plainly as I see you. She was blonde. One of those pale-gold
blondes with hair like honey and features cut with a chisel. You know
the type. Some people think it's cold. It's a kind of beauty that's
always appealed to me, though." He stopped.

"Well," Honey prodded him with a kind of non-committal calm, "what
happened?"

"Nothing. If you can believe me--nothing. I stared--oh, I guess I stared
for a quarter of a minute straight up into the most beautiful pair of
eyes that I ever saw in my life. I stared straight up into them and I
stared straight down into them. They were as deep as a well and as gray
as a cloud and as cold as ice. And they had lashes--" For a moment the
quiet directness of Billy's narrative was disturbed by a whiff of inner
tumult. "Whew! what eyelashes! Honey, did you ever come across a lonely
mountain lake with high reeds growing around the edge? You know how pure
and unspoiled and virginal it seems. That was her eyes. They sort of
hypnotized me. My eyes closed and--when I awoke it was broad daylight.
What do you think?"

"Well," said Honey judicially, "I know just how you feel. I could have
killed the boys for joshing me the way they did. I was sure. I was
certain I heard a woman laugh that night. And, by God, I did hear it.
Whenever I contradict myself, something rises up and tells me I lie.
But--." His radiant brown smile crumpled his brown face. "Of course, I
didn't hear it. I couldn't have heard it. And so I guess you didn't see
the peroxide you speak of. And yet if you Punch me in the jaw, I'll know
exactly how you feel." His face uncrumpled, smoothed itself out to his
rare look of seriousness. "The point of it is that we're all a little
touched in the bean. I figure that you and I are alike in some things.
That's why we've always hung together. And all this queer stuff takes
us two the same way. Remember that psychology dope old Rand used to pump
into us at college? Well, our psychologies have got all twisted up by
a recent event in nautical circles and we're seeing things that aren't
th