Everybody looked doubtful.
"Hark!" exclaimed Julian, quite involuntarily. "Isn't that——?"
Sarah, looking heated, announced dinner.
"Oh, what a pity!" said Ruthie. "But I daresay me and Ambrose will be still here when you come out from dinner. So I can say it then."
With this altruistic reassurance still ringing in the air, to an accompaniment of stubbornly reiterated "ehs" from Ambrose, the dining-room was reached.
"I see that your novel is being very well advertised," Sir Julian began conversation with his hostess. "We have it on order, but it has not yet arrived. I hope that means that the sales are going well."
"Don't hope that," said Mr. Garrett in a deep voice across the table.
"Why not?" said Mark, after giving Sir Julian due time for the enquiry which nothing would have induced him to make.
"'Why, Ben!' is not to be lightly put before the multitude. Iris has shown extraordinary courage in attacking a problem which could only present itself to thinking minds. The very title tells one that—a Story of the Sexes. By the by, Iris, we realists of the new school are inclined to wish that you had made that the name of the book outright."
"No, no," said Mark, and added courageously, "Besides, I like 'Why, Ben!' It's so original."