He hesitated.
"Why—yes—of course."
"If you'd rather not?"
"No, bring him. I want to make friends again if I can."
So we started for Graves's house, Don very close at my heels.
"Graves," I said, "surely a taboo by a lot of fool islanders hasn't upset you. There's something on your mind. Bad news?"
"Oh, no," he said. "She's coming. It's other things. I'll tell you by and by—everything. Don't mind me. I'm all right. Listen to the wind in the grass. That sound day and night is enough to put a man off his feed."
"You say you found something very curious back there in the grass?"
"I found, among other things, a stone monolith. It's fallen down, but it's almost as big as the Flatiron Building in New York. It's ancient as days—all carved—it's a sort of woman, I think. But we'll go back one day and have a look at it. Then, of course, I saw all the different kinds of grasses in the world—they'd interest you more—but I'm such a punk botanist that I gave up trying to tell 'em apart. I like the flowers best—there's millions of 'em—down among the grass.... I tell you, old man, this island is the greatest curiosity-shop in the whole world."
He unlocked the door of his house and stood aside for me to go in first.