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The rose-beetle turned his fan-shaped feelers to one side and let a ray of sunlight glide over them. "Great, don't you think?" he asked. "I shouldn't have thought anything like them possible," rejoined Maya. "My own feelers are very plain." "Well, yes," observed Peter, "to each his own.
Effie smiled a sad, superior smile. "Bobbie, you don't understand. I have my own views in the matter. Besides, there's something else. You have been exceedingly indelicate. You took advantage of my ignorance. You let me think you were a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug. A considerable difference! He saw you engaged in well, doing something I don't care to mention.
Living-rooms, library, halls, billiard-room, were obstructed with "scientific" paraphernalia; hundreds of glass fruit jars, filled with earth containing the whitish, globular eggs of the Rose-beetle, encumbered mantel and furniture; glass aquariums half full of earth, sod, and youthful larvæ of the same sinful beetle lent pleasing variety to the monotony of Scott's interior decorative effects.
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!
"Take some more," said Peter, rather amazed by his little guest's appetite. "Rose-juice of the first vintage. One has to be careful and not spoil one's stomach. There's some dew left, too, if you're thirsty." "Thank you so much," said Maya. "I'd like to fly now, if you will permit me." The rose-beetle laughed. "Flying, always flying," he said. "It's in the blood of you bees.
But the Pieris, which haunts the cabbage, frequents the nasturtium also, and the golden rose-beetle, which "intoxicates itself at the clusters of the hawthorn," is no less addicted to the nectar of the rose.
She is too sweet to Scott; she seems to think he really grieves deeply over the loss of his private fortune. What a dear she is! She is willing to marry him now; but Scott strikes attitudes and declares she shall have a man whose name stands for an achievement meaning, of course, the Seagrave process for the extermination of the Rose-beetle. "Duane, I am quite unaccountably happy to-day.
Scott admired in silence for a while, then: "You certainly are a shark at it, Duane.... You've struck your gait all right.... I wish I had.... This Rose-beetle business doesn't promise very well." "You write most interestingly about it," said Kathleen warmly. "Yes, I can write.... I believe journalism would suit me." "The funny column?" suggested Geraldine.
At her very feet lay a little rose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of a large locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains of slaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths. "Oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me," whimpered little Maya.
In went sulky Mr. Fuzz, and on trundled the ambulance till a golden green rose-beetle was discovered, lying on his back kicking as if in a fit. "Dear me, what shall I do for him?" thought Nelly. "He acts as baby did when she was so ill, and mamma put her in a warm bath. I haven't got my little tub here, or any hot water, and I'm afraid the beetle would not like it if I had.
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