"How goes it, Sis?" asked her brother affectionately, shouldering Duane aside.
"A little sleepy, but all right. Why on earth did you send for Dr. Bailey? It was horribly expensive."
"Duane did," said her brother briefly. "He was scared blue."
Her eyes rested on her lover, indulgent, dreamily humorous.
"Such expensive habits," she murmured, "when everybody is economising. Kathleen, dear, he needs schooling. You and Mr. Tappan ought to take him in hand and cultiwate him good and hard!"
Scott, who had been wandering around his sister's room with innate masculine curiosity concerning the mysteries of intimate femininity, came upon a sketch of Duane's—the colour not entirely dry yet.
"It's Sis!" he exclaimed in unfeigned approval. "Lord, but you've made her a good-looker, Duane. Does she really appear like that to you?"
"And then some," said Duane. "Keep your fingers off it."
Scott admired in silence for a while, then: "You certainly are a shark at it, Duane.... You've struck your gait all right.... I wish I had.... This Rose-beetle business doesn't promise very well."
"You write most interestingly about it," said Kathleen warmly.