"I have taken her on," Phil replied, quite without resentment. "Hadn't you noticed it?"
"Yes," I said; "only, it's the other way round."
"I've been appropriated, is that it?"
"Yes; by Susan. We all have, Phil. That vampire child is simply draining us, my dear fellow."
"All right," said Phil, after a second's pause, "if she's a spiritual vampire, so much the better. Only, she'll need a firm hand. We must give her suck at regular hours; draw up a plan. You can tackle the languages, if you like—æsthetics, and all that. I'll pin her down to math and logic—teach her to think straight. We can safely leave her to pick up history and sociology and such things for herself. You've a middling good library, and she'll browse."
"Oh, she'll browse! She's browsing now."
"Poetry?" demanded Phil, suspicion in his tone, anxiety in his eyes. "If she runs amuck with poetry too soon, there's no hope for her. She'll get to taking sensations for ideas, and that's fatal. A mind like Susan's——"
What further he said I missed; a distant tinkle from the front-door bell had distracted me.
It was Maltby Phar. He came out to us on the garden terrace, unexpected and unannounced.
"Whether you like it or not," he sighed luxuriously, "I'm here for a week. How's the great experiment—eh? Am I too late for the bust-up?" Then he nodded to Phil. "How are you, Mr. Farmer? Delighted to meet an old adversary! Shall it be swords or pistols this time? Or clubs? But I warn you, I'm no fit foe; I'm soft. Making up our mammoth Christmas Number in July always unnerves me. By the time I had looked over a dozen designs for our cover this morning and found Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar in every one of them, mounted on fancy camels, and heading for an exaggerated star in the right upper dark-blue corner, I succumbed to heat and profanity, turned 'em all face downward, shuffled 'em, grabbed one at random, and then fled for solace! Solace," he added, dropping into a wicker armchair, "can begin, if you like, by taking a cool, mellow, liquid form."