"Hilda has some oysters for us."
"Fine—I'm starved."
She looked at him, meditatively, "I don't see how you can be."
"Why not?"
"Oh, on such a night as this, Daddy? Food seems superfluous."
He sat down, smiling. "Don't ever expect to feed any man over forty on star-dust. Hilda knows better, don't you, Hilda?"
Hilda was bringing in the tray. There was a copper chafing-dish and a percolator. She wore her nurse's outfit of white linen. She looked well in it, and she was apt to put it on after dinner, when she was in charge of the office.
"You know better than to feed a man on stardust, don't you?" the Doctor persisted.
Hilda lifted the cover of the chafing-dish and stirred the contents. "Well, yes," she smiled at him, "you see, I have lived longer than Jean. She'll learn."
"I don't want to learn," Jean told her hotly. "I want to believe that—that—" Words failed her.