nearly always chilly.

Peter opened it and laid it very lightly over Jan, who never stirred.

Then he sat down in a comfortable chair some distance off, where she
would see him if she woke, and reviewed the situation, which was
unconventional, certainly.

He had sent his car away when he arrived, as it was but a step to the
Yacht Club where he slept. Now, he felt he couldn't leave, for if Jan
woke suddenly she would feel confused and probably frightened.

"I never thought so little brandy could have had such an effect," Peter
reflected half ruefully. "I suppose it's because she'd had nothing to
eat. It's about the best thing that could have happened, but I never
meant to hocus her like this."

There she lay, a long white mound under the shawl. She had slipped her
hand under her cheek and looked pathetically young and helpless.

"I wonder what I'd better do," thought Peter.

Mrs. Grundy commanded him to go at once. Common humanity bade him stay.

Peter was very human, and he stayed.

About half-past five Jan woke. She was certainly confused, but not in
the least frightened. It was light, not brilliantly light as it would be
a little later on, but clear and opalescent, as though the sun were
shining through fold upon fold of grey-blue gauze.

The electric light in the verandah and the one over Peter's head were
still burning and looked garish and wan, and Jan's first coherent
thought was, "How dreadfully wasteful to have had them on all
night--Peter's electric light, too"--and then she saw him.

His body was crumpled up in the big chair; his legs were thrust out
stiffly in front of him. He looked a heartrending interpretation of
discomfort in his evening clothes, for he hadn't even loosened the
collar. He had thought of it, but felt it might be disrespectful to Jan.
Besides, there was something of the chaperon about that collar.

Jan's tears that had refused to soften sorrow during the anguish of the
night came now, hot and springing, to blur that absurd, pathetic figure
looped sideways in the big chair.

It was so plain why he was there.

She sniffed helplessly (of course, she had lost her handkerchief), and
thrust her knuckles into her eyes like any schoolboy.

When she could see again she noticed how thin was the queer, irregular
face, with dark hollows round the eyes.

"I wonder if they feed him properly at that Yacht Club," thought Jan.
"And here are we using his house and his cook and everything."