Li Ho departed to tinker with the "Tillicum" and afterwards returned to give us a late supper.

Desire kept out of my way.

One might almost have thought that she was shy--if so, a most perplexing development.

For why should she feel shy?
It wasn't as if we had not put the whole affair on a perfectly business basis.

Perhaps there is some elemental magic in names, so that, to a woman, the very word "marriage" has power to provoke certain nervous reactions?
However that may be, even Desire forgot Sami.