King rummaged in his trunk, and soon, grinning, beckoned to me. I went over to him and saw, in the tray, a large, ferocious-looking mask such as are used in the Chinese theaters and at the Feasts of the Dead. Beside it was a pair of huge brass cymbals and a snake-skin tomtom. King held up the mask.
"Oh, you used to be an actor, eh!" I said.
He grinned and held the thing in front of his face. It certainly was horrible. He took up the cymbals and struck one clang. Then he put them away.
"Heap good for debbil. Dlive him away quick!" he said. "Maybe some time I tly him! You think so?"
I laughed, and went back to the library, where Joy was already waiting for me.
She was standing by the window-seat, looking out, putting in a hat-pin, lost in thought, when I entered. My footsteps made no noise on the heavy rug, and I thoughtlessly touched her on the shoulder before she was aware of my approach. Absorbed in her trouble, unstrung, the surprise startled her with a sudden irrational terror; she leaped away as if from the touch of a snake. Then, seeing me, she dropped upon the window-seat, her hand on her heart.
"Oh, you frightened me so! You see how nervous I am. I didn't hear you. I'm a goose!"
I took no step toward her, but stood there gazing at her. A sudden idea had come to me at sight of her fear, and immediately a plan was unrolled before me, a perfected thing, a solution of the problem, perhaps. At my fixed, stony attitude, however, she took a new alarm and cried out:
"What is it, Chester? What is it?"
"Wait a moment," I said quietly, "let me think it out." My tone reassured her, but she was still agitated as she watched me while I turned it over in my mind. Then I took a seat beside her.