square to tables;
tables were set at mathematically precise angles; blinds were all
drawn down exactly four inches from the tops of the windows; and all
the books were in their shelves.

It was all too tidy to have been lived in, and, therefore, too tidy to
live in, and it took Daisy nearly an hour to take the chill off the
room, as she put it, though the heat here was nearly as intense as it
had been in town. Gladys, who was no good at this subtle business of
restoring life to a dead room, occupied herself with writing out the
names of the guests very neatly on cards, which she then, with equal
neatness, affixed to the doors of their rooms.

Daisy paused at the end of this hour and surveyed the room with
satisfaction. "For one who has till so lately been a corpse it isn't
bad," she said. "Don't you see the difference, Gladys? It was like a
refrigerator before. Yes, let's have tea at once, shall we, and then go
out? There's lots more to do. We must pick great boughs of laburnum and
beech for all the big vases. Gardeners are no good at that; nor are you,
dear, for that matter. You tell them to pick boughs, and they pick
button-holes."

"I hate picking flowers at all," said Gladys. "They are so much nicer
where they are."

Daisy poured out tea.

"I know you think that," she said, "and I entirely disagree. Whenever
you see flowers in a house you think what a pity they are not growing in
the garden; whereas, whenever I see flowers in a garden, it seems to me
such a pity they are not in the house. Of course, when the house is
quite, quite full, I don't mind the rest remaining in the garden."

Gladys laughed.

"I think that's like you," she said. "You want to use things on the
whole, and I on the whole want to let them enjoy themselves."

"That sounds as if you thought yourself a perfect saint of unselfishness
and me a greedy pig," remarked Daisy. "If you don't come to tea I shall
eat all the strawberries. Perhaps you wish they had never been picked,
and left to rot on their stems by way of enjoying themselves."

Gladys finished the last name on her packet of cards for guests' rooms.

"No, I don't go as far as that," she said, "because I like the taste of
them, which you can't get at unless you eat them. Now flowers look much
nicer when they are growing."

"Yes, but they are not yours so much when they are growing," said Daisy.
"I like them in my house, in my vases. Yes, I suppose I am greedy. Oh, I
am going to