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Theo made her handkerchief into a damp, tight little ball in her lap, smoothed it out, and very carefully began to tear off its border.

Afar Mr. Duke was shouting: “Come see my new collection while we’re waiting. ”

“I hate you!” Theo snarled at Janet, and ran into the last of the series of drawing rooms. From its darkness she could see her father and Stacy. She felt that she was protecting this, her brother, from danger; from the greatest of dangers—being awkward in the presence of the stranger, Janet. She was aware of Janet slithering in beside her.

“Now what do you think of that, eh?” Mr. Duke was demanding. He had unlocked a walnut cabinet, taken out an enameled plate.

Stacy was radiant. “Oh, yes. I know what that stuff is. I’ve read about it. It’s cloysoan. ” He had pronounced it to rime with moan.

“Well, not precisely! Cloysonnay, most folks would call it. Culwasonnay, if you want to be real highbrow. But cloysoan, that’s pretty good! Mamma! Janet! The lad says this is cloysoan! Ha, ha! Well, never mind, my boy. Better folks than you and I have made that kind of a mistake. ”

Janet was tittering. The poisonous stream of it trickled through all the rooms. Stacy must have heard. He looked about uneasily.

Suddenly Theo saw him as a lout, in his new suit that hung like wood. He was twisting a button and trying to smile back at Mr. Duke.

The cloisonn plate was given to Stacy to admire. What he saw was a flare of many-colored enamels in tiny compartments. In the center a dragon writhed its tongue in a field of stars, and on the rim were buds on clouds of snow, a flying bird, and amusing symbols among willow leaves.

But Mr. Duke was lecturing on what he ought to have seen:

“This is a sara, and a very fine specimen. Authorities differ, but it belonged either to the Shi sinwo or the Monzeki—princely monks, in the monastery of Nin-na-ji. Note the extreme thinness of the cloisons, and the pastes are very evenly vitrified. The colors are remarkable. You’ll notice there’s slate blue, sage green, chrome yellow, and—uh—well, there’s several other colors. You see the ground shows the kara kusa. That bird there is a ho-ho in flight above the branches of the kiri tree. ”

Stacy had a healthy suspicion that a few months before Mr. Duke had known no more about Oriental art than Stacy Lindstrom. But he had no Japanese words for repartee, and he could only rest his weight on the other foot and croak “Well, well!”

Mr. Duke was beatifically going on: “Now this chat-subo, you’ll notice, is not cloisonn at all, but champlev. Very important point in studying shippo ware. Note the unusually fine kiku crest on this chawan. ”

“I see. Uh—I see,” said Stacy.

“Just a goat, that’s all he is, just a giddy goat,” Janet whispered to Theo in the dark room beyond, and pranced away.

It was five minutes before Theo got up courage to rescue Stacy. When she edged into the room he was sitting in a large leather chair and fidgeting. He was fidgeting in twenty different but equally irritating ways. He kept re-crossing his legs, and every time he crossed them the stiff trousers bagged out in more hideous folds. Between times he tapped his feet. His fingers drummed on the chair. He looked up at the ceiling, licking his lips, and hastily looked down, with an artificial smile in acknowledgment of Mr. Duke’s reminiscences of travel.

Theo swooped on Stacy with hands clapping in welcome, with a flutter of white muslin skirts about young ankles.