"Twice means that Scotch is to be included," remarked Desboro. "You didn't know that, did you, dear?"
"The only thing I know about your house, monsieur, is that your cats and dogs must not pervade the red drawing-room," she said laughing. "Look at Captain Herrendene's beautiful cutaway coat! It's all covered with fur and puppy hair! And now he can't go into the drawing-room, either!"
Cairns looked ruefully at a black and white cat which had jumped onto his knees and was purring herself to sleep there.
"If enough of 'em climb on me I'll have a motor coat for next winter," he said with resignation.
Tea was served; the chatter and laughter became general. Daisy Hammerton, always enamoured of literature, and secretly addicted to its creation, spoke of Orrin Munger's new volume which Herrendene had been reading to her that morning under the trees.
"Such a queer book," she said, turning to Jacqueline, "—and I'm not yet quite certain whether it's silly or profound. Captain Herrendene makes fun of it—but it seems as though there must be some meaning in it."
"There isn't," said Herrendene. "It consists of a wad of verse, blank, inverted, and symbolic. Carbolic is what it requires."
"Isn't that the moon-youth who writes over the heads of the public and far ahead of 'em into the next century?" inquired Cairns.
"When an author," said Herrendene, "thinks he is writing ahead of his readers, the chances are that he hasn't yet caught up with them."
The only flaw in Daisy Hammerton's good sense was a mistaken respect for printed pages. She said, reverently: