ertain to have
told Aunt Alice himself."

"You didn't think of that yesterday," said Gladys.

"No. What disgusting salad! I believe it's made of turnip-tops. I'm very
glad he didn't come to lunch."

"Men are so greedy about their food," said Gladys. "I don't mind
what I eat."

"Evidently, since you can eat that. Oh, Gladys, I don't mean to be
cross, but when you say things on purpose to annoy me it would be such
bad manners in me not to appear to be annoyed. Do you think his motor
has broken down? Fancy him tramping down the Bath road on a day like
this! He hates walking unless he is going to kill something. He was
charged by a rhinoceros once. If you try to shoot them and miss, they
charge. How awfully tiresome of them! He killed it afterwards, though.
It was quite close. You never heard anything so exciting."

Gladys laughed.

"Oh, Daisy," she said, "you told me that before, and you said it was so
hard to know what to say if you didn't know a rhinoceros from a
hippopotamus. And now you find it too exciting."

"Well, what then?" said Daisy, with dignity. "I think one ought to take
an interest in all sorts of subjects. It is frightfully suburban only to
be interested in what happens in your own parish. Somebody said that the
world was his parish."

"I don't know what parish Grosvenor Square is in," said Gladys,
parenthetically.

Somehow Daisy, in this new mood, was far less formidable than the
glittering crystal which had been Daisy up till now. She seemed to have
rubbed shoulders with the world, instead of streaking the sky above it.
Her happiness, you would say, even in the moment of its birth, had
humbled and softened her. Gladys found she had not the slightest fear of
being snapped up. Several times during lunch Daisy had snapped, but she
had snapped innocuously. They had finished now, and she rose.

"I expect him in about an hour," said Daisy, rather magisterially. "Let
us finish the flowers. I love flowers in my bedroom, don't you? Do let
us put a dish of them in everybody's bedroom. It looks so welcoming.
Books, too; everybody likes a book or two in his room. It's so easy to
do little things like that, and people appreciate it enormously. There's
the whole of the afternoon before us; nobody will arrive till the five
o'clock train."

"But I thought you said you expected him----" began Gladys.

"Darling, pray don't criticize my last remark but three. Every remark
becomes obsolete as soon as another