"Its moral seems to be that women are a nuisance," Isabel commented, her manner injured.
"That would not be a moral, it would be a falsehood," Gerard demurred. "No, I fancy the moral might be, do not challenge Fate to a duel. Are you considering our nonsense, Miss Rose?"
"I was thinking of the story," Flavia amended. "I was wondering if the kings would not soon have filled the vase had they been content to mark each happy hour, and whether a wise treasurer of happiness would not find a vase filled with seed-pearls where they found a vase empty."
"Exactly! You have found the secret, no doubt. Moral: do not ask too much."
"A day too much?" marvelled Corrie. "Why, I expect a lifetime!" He flung back his head, looking around the smiling circle. "Well, why not? What's a lifetime, anyhow? Not half enough to get all the fun there is in living, as long as you do no harm by it. And who wants to do any harm when there is so much else to do? Not anyone in his right mind. Anyway, I've got to-day's pearl canned, and it can't get away. And I can think of lots of others I've had, if I could go back for them."
"Shall I guess the name of Al-Mansor's vase?" Flavia asked, as she rose. She was smiling, but her cheeks were flushed and her serious eyes caressed her brother. "It was Memory, I think. And, no, Corrie, the pearls put there cannot be lost."
The extreme warmth of the day had continued into the evening. As Isabel followed Flavia across the hall, Corrie overtook his cousin, wound a scarf around her bare shoulders and lured her out on the veranda. She yielded not unwillingly, contrary to her recent custom of neglecting him, and they disappeared together. Any such latent project of Gerard's was prevented by Mr. Rose's mood for chat, a mood not usual for him.
"You are not looking much like the driver I met on the way home, to-day," he informed his guest, surveying Gerard quizzically, when they were established in the drawing-room. "But I didn't recognize my own son, for that matter. He don't seem like mine, when he's out in those goblin clothes driving like Satan in a hurry. It's sensible enough for you, being in the automobile trade, but for him it's just fool play."
"He does it a little too well to call it that," Gerard returned seriously.
"Yes? Well, I've got money enough to pay for it—although it's the most expensive game he's found yet—or for anything else he fancies. I've told him to amuse himself for a while. He is too young to settle down to work, when there is no need for it. I never had any playing time, and I want to see him have his. And he has earned it, too; I suppose he told you he was through college?"