"That'll do. I have to be at the office this morning."
"Good Lord, Mark, you live at that office, I believe, when you aren't at the College. What does your sister say to you?"
"She has other fish to fry," said Mark drily.
Julian admitted the truth in the implication when he presently encountered Miss Easter loitering along the lane. Her golden head was uncovered, and she wore a curious cockney medley of black fur, silk décolleté blouse, tweed skirt, silk stockings, and high-heeled shoes of thin suède.
She said, "Oh, Sir Julian!" with great enthusiasm, and insisted upon tripping along the hard, frozen lane beside him as far as his own gate.
Sir Julian, who thought her pretty, if absurd, was always able to endure her society with equanimity for a short while, and made amiable enquiry after "Why, Ben!"
"Oh, isn't it too, too wonderful?" said Iris, in slightly awe-stricken tones. "The little tiny seed I tried to sow bearing such wonderful fruit and shedding light in so many dark places!"
"Very wonderful," Julian agreed, mentally applying the epithet to the phenomenon of any seed possessing the peculiar property of shedding light in dark places.
"It's perfectly dear of you to say so," warmly responded the authoress.
"Douglas Garrett, you know, my great friend, he knows the most fearful amount about books, and he says that 'Why, Ben!' has simply gone straight back to earth."