“You came too late.  You should have been here with Great-Aunt Sophronisba,” Alicia told him, tartly.  “You’d have been ideal companions, both of you beware-of-the-doggy, hair-trigger-tempery, all-to-your-selfish.”

The Author gasped, and rubbed his eyes.  Never, never, in all his pampered life, had one so spoken to him.

“Why, of all the cheek!” exploded The Author.  “Am I to be flouted thus by a piece of pink-and-whiteness just escaped from the nursery pap-spoon?”

“Out of the mouths of babes—­” insinuated Alicia.

The Author grinned.  And his grin is redeeming.

“Sweet-and near-twenty,” he explained.  “I am not exactly all-to-myselfish, but I demand plenty of elbow-room in my existence.  Generally speaking, my own society bores me less than the society of the mutable many.  I like Hynds House.  And I like you two women.  You are not tiresome to the ear, wearisome to the mind, nor displeasing to the eye.  I am even sensible of a distinct feeling of satisfaction in knowing that you are somewhere around the house.  You belong.  But I’m hanged if I want to see strangers come in.  I object to strangers.  Why are strangers necessary?”

“For the same reason that you were.”

“I?” The Author’s eyebrows were almost lost in his hair.  “My dear, deluded child, I knew this house, and you, and Sophy Smith, before you were born!  I knew you,” The Author declared unblushingly, “before I was born!  Now, am I a stranger?”

“Then you ought to know why Sophy and I have just got to have people, the sort of people who are coming.”  She paused. “We haven’t best-seller royalties piled up to the roof!”

“No,” said The Author, bitterly, “but I have.  That’s why I am forever plagued with strangers.  That’s why, when I discover a place and people that suit me to perfection, I can’t keep ’em to myself!  Oh, da—­drat it all, anyhow!”

“But they aren’t coming to see you.  They’re coming to see Hynds House,” Alicia reminded him soothingly.  “Besides, I don’t think they’re the sort of folks that care much for authors,” she finished, encouragingly.

“They’ll care about me” grumbled The Author glumly.  “But let ’em come and be hanged to them!  I shall take—­”

“Soothing syrup?”

“Long walks!” snarled The Author.  “I shall work all night and be invisible all day.”

The Westmacotes, as Alicia said, didn’t greatly care for authors, though they sat up and took polite notice of this one. (One owed that to one’s self-respect.) Only Miss Emmeline paid more than passing attention to him, though her interest really centered in Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who was dining with us that night, as was Doctor Richard Geddes.