“Few women ask for that, Scott; few care for it; fewer still understand it——­”

“You would.  I’ve got a cheek to ask you to marry me—­me!—­before I wear any tag to identify me except the dollar mark——­”

“Oh, hush, Scott!  You are talking utter nonsense; don’t you know it?”

He made a large and rather grandiose gesture: 

“Around me lies opportunity, Kathleen—­every stone; every brook——­”

The mischievous laughter of his listener checked him.  She said:  “I’m sorry; only it made me think of

        ’Sermons in stones,
    Books in the running brooks,’

and the indignant gentleman who said:  ’What damn nonsense!  It’s “sermons in books, stones in the running brooks!"’ Do go on, Scott, dear, I don’t mean to be frivolous; it is fine of you to wish for fame——­”

“It isn’t fame alone, although I wouldn’t mind it if I deserved it.  It’s that I want to do just one thing that amounts to something.  I wish you’d give me an idea, Kathleen, something useful in—­say in entomology.”

Together they walked back to the terrace.  Duane had gone; Geraldine sat sideways on the parapet, her brown eyes fixed on the road along which her lover had departed.

“Geraldine,” said Kathleen, who very seldom relapsed into the vernacular, “this brother of yours desires to perform some startling stunt in entomology and be awarded Carnegie medals.”

“That’s about it,” said Scott, undaunted.  “Some wise guy put it all over the Boll-weevil, and saved a few billions for the cotton growers; another gentleman full of scientific thinks studied out the San Jose scale; others have got in good licks at mosquitoes and house-flies.  I’d like to tackle something of that sort.”

“Rose-beetles,” said his sister briefly.  In her voice was a suspicion of tears, and she kept her head turned from them.

“Nobody could ever get rid of Rose-beetles,” said Kathleen.  “But it would be exciting, wouldn’t it, Scott?  Think of saving our roses and peonies and irises every year!”

“I am thinking of it,” said Scott gravely.

A few moments later he disappeared around the corner of the house, returning presently, pockets bulging with bottles and boxes, a field-microscope in one hand, and several volumes on Coleoptera in the other.

“They’re gone,” he said without further explanation.

“Who are gone?” inquired Kathleen.

“The Rose-beetles.  They deposit their eggs in the soil.  The larvae ought to be out by now.  I’m going to begin this very minute, Kathleen.”  And he descended the terrace steps, entered the garden, and, seating himself under a rose-tree, spread out his paraphernalia and began a delicate and cautious burrowing process in the sun-dried soil.

“Fame is hidden under humble things,” observed Geraldine with a resolute effort at lightness.  “That excellent brother of mine may yet discover it in the garden dirt.”