“Has that fact any particular significance to you?” he asked slowly.

“Vital!...  Do you understand me, Duane, dear?”

“Yes.”

A moment later she called in her clear voice:  “Gate, please!” A lantern flashed; a door opened in the lodge; there came a crunch of snow, a creak, and the gates of Roya-Neh swung wide in the starlight.

Kathleen nodded her thanks to the keeper, let the whip whistle, and spent several minutes in consequence recovering control of the fiery young horses who were racing like scared deer.  The road was wide, crossed here and there by snowy “rides,” and bordered by the splendid Roya-Neh forests; wide enough to admit a white glow from myriads of stars.  Never had Duane seen so many stars swarming in the heavens; the winter constellations were magnificent, their diamond-like lustre silvered the world.

“I suppose you want to hear all the news, all the gossip, from three snow-bound rustics, don’t you?” she asked.  “Well, then, let me immediately report a most overwhelming tragedy.  Scott has just discovered that several inconsiderate entomologists, who died before he was born, all wrote elaborate life histories of the Rose-beetle.  Isn’t it pathetic?  And he’s worked so hard, and he’s been like a father to the horrid young grubs, feeding them nice juicy roots, taking their weights and measures, photographing them, counting their degraded internal organs—­oh, it is too vexing!  Because, if you should ask me, I may say that I’ve been a mother to them, too, and it enrages me to find out that all those wretched, squirming, thankless creatures have been petted and studied and have had their legs counted and their Bertillon measurements taken years before either Scott or I came into this old fraud of a scientific world!”

Duane’s unrestrained laughter excited her merriment; the star-lit woodlands rang with it and the treble chiming of the sleigh-bells.

“What on earth will he find to do now?” asked Duane.

“He’s going to see it through, he says.  Isn’t it fine of him?  There is just a bare chance that he may discover something that those prying entomological people overlooked.  Anyway, we are going to devote next summer to studying the parasites of the Rose-beetle, and try to find out what sort of creatures prey upon them.  And I want to tell you something exciting, Duane.  Promise you won’t breathe one word!”

“Not a word!”

“Well, then—­Scott was going to tell you, anyway!—­we think—­but, of course, we are not sure by any means!—­but we venture to think that we have discovered a disease which kills Rose-beetles.  We don’t know exactly what it is yet, or how they get it, but we are practically convinced that it is a sort of fungus.”

She was very serious, very earnest, charming in her conscientious imitation of that scientific caution which abhors speculation and never dares assert anything except dry and proven facts.