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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. "What are you and Scott aiming at? Are you going to try to start an epidemic among the Rose-beetles?" he inquired. "Oh, it's far too early to even outline our ideas "
"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 José 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.
He bowed, setting the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself: "Bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles." Maya had to laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not a rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over in silence, not caring to mortify him. "Don't you mind the rain?" she asked. "Oh, no. I'm accustomed to the rain from the roses, you know.
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 larvæ ought to be out by now.
One day he asked Kathleen privately about this, but she merely confirmed Geraldine's diagnosis of the phenomenon: "Tears come into girls' eyes," she said, "and there isn't anybody on earth who can tell a man why, and he wouldn't comprehend it if anybody did tell him." "I'll tell you one thing," he said sceptically; "if Rose-beetles shed tears, I'd never rest until I found out why.
Their fearless sweetness set him trembling. On the floor below Kathleen, at the piano, was playing the Menuet d'Exaudet. When she ended, Scott, cheerily busy with his infant Rose-beetles, went about his affairs whistling the air. "Our betrothal dance; do you remember?" murmured Geraldine. "Do you love me, Duane? Tell me so; I need it." "I love you," he said.
Rose-beetles pass, in snoring flight, on every hand, the gold and emerald of their elytra gleaming; now and again one of them alights for a moment on the flowering head of a thistle; he seizes it carefully with the tips of his nervous, pointed fingers, seems to caress it, speaks to it, and then suddenly restores it to freedom. Wasps are pillaging the centauries.
"Say, listen, dadda, in this matter of rose-beetles, what would you do if " George moved away. The conversation was becoming too technical for him, and he had an idea that he would not be missed. There had come to him, moreover, in a flash one of those sudden inspirations which great generals get.
"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.
The hatred which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues Lord Marshmoreton kept for roseslugs, rose-beetles and the small, yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a character that it goes through life with an alias being sometimes called a rose-hopper and sometimes a thrips. A simple soul, Lord Marshmoreton mild and pleasant.
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