Miss Demorest giggled audibly; she had lost all interest in her food; she was tingling with excitement.

“Why didn’t you fence them in?” she asked.

Pope eyed her for a fleeting instant, then his gaze wavered.

“I fenced in the whole pond to begin with.  It nearly broke me.”

“A duck shouldn’t have much water.  What kind were they?”

“Plymouth Rocks, or Holsteins, or Jersey Lilies—­anyhow they were white.”

“White Pekins!”

The critic frowned argumentatively.  “What is a duck for if he isn’t to swim?  What is his object?  We had six on my father’s farm, and they swam all the time.  Of course, six isn’t many, but—­”

“Naturally they didn’t do well—­”

“But they did do well—­and quite naturally, too.  They did beautifully, in fact.  They never had an ache or a pain.  What do you know about ducks?”

Adoree answered in a tone of calm and utter certainty:  “I know everything.  I’ve read hundreds, maybe thousands of duck books.  I have a whole library of them.”

“A duck library.  I thought so.  But did you ever own a library of ducks?  There’s a difference.  A man doesn’t have to know anything to write a book—­I’ve done it myself.  Practical experience is the thing.”

“Did you keep cows for them?”

Pope stared at his inquisitor for a moment; then he explained with patient politeness:  “These were not carnivorous ducks.  They ate bugs and fish and corn.”

“Corn!” Adoree was shocked, incredulous; her eyes glittered with the fire of fanaticism; she no longer saw in this man an enemy, a vile creature branded with the mark of the beast, but a fellow-enthusiast—­a surprisingly ignorant one, to be sure, but an enthusiast for all that, and therefore bound to her by unbreakable bonds.  Live steam would have been more easily confined than the vast fund of technical knowledge with which she was crammed.

“You should have fed soft food and sour milk,” she began.  “Buttermilk would have been all right, and in that way your cows would have been self-supporting.  You need a good pasture with a duck-farm.  When I was in Germany I saw the most wonderful incubator—­a child could operate it.  I’d like to show you some brooder-house plans I had drawn over there.  You see, you made your first mistake in choosing fresh-water.  If I had a good location near salt-water—­not too near—­and proper surroundings, I’d show you something about ducks.  I’d start with a thousand—­that’s plenty—­then kill for the market as they quit laying, and mix the stock right, and in three years—­”

Bob Wharton signaled frantically to his wife, but there was no stopping the discussion that had begun to rage back and forth.  It lasted until the conclusion of the meal, and it was only with an effort that Adoree tore herself away.  She was in her element, and in a little time had won the critic’s undivided attention; he listened with absorption; he even made occasional notes.