“Of course I do, darling,” said Rosamund. “But I've been reading about them, and so--well, you see, they come from coal tar, and coal is a bit of a tree that grew up and fell down thousands of years ago, and its burning is nothing more than its giving back the sunshine that it--what is the word that the book used?--oh, I remember--the sunshine that it hoarded when it was part of the forest. Now, I think that if it's natural for flowers to be coloured by the sunshine it doesn't matter whether it's the sunshine of to-day or the sunshine of fifty thousand years ago; it comes from the sun all the same, and as aniline dyes are the sunshine of long ago it's no harm to have them to colour flowers now.” “Daddy was only complaining of the horrid ones, my dear,” said the Mother, without looking at me. “Isn't that what you meant?” she added, and now she looked at me, and though I was suspicious that she was smiling under her skin, I could not detect the slightest symptom of a smile in her voice. “Of course I meant the hideous ones--magenta and that other sort of purple thing. I usually make my meaning plain,” said I, with a modified bluster. “Oh,” remarked Rosamund, in a tone that suggested a polite negation of acquiescence. There was another little silence before I said,--“Anyhow, it was those German brutes who developed those aniline things.” “Oh, yes; they could do anything they pleased with _coal_ tar,” said Dorothy. “But the other sort could do anything he pleased with the Germans--and he did.” “The other sort?” said I inquiringly. “Yes, the other sort--the true British product--the _Jack Tar_,” said Dorothy; and Rosamund, who has a friend who is a midshipman in the Royal Navy, clapped her hands and laughed. It is at such moments as this that I feel I am not master in my own house. Time was when I believed that my supremacy was as unassailable as that of the Lord High Admiral; but since those girls have been growing up I have come to realise that I have been as completely abolished as the Lord High Admiral--once absolute, but now obsolete--and that the duties of office are discharged by a commission. The Board of Admiralty is officially the Lords Commissioners for discharging the office of Lord High Admiral. I hope that this _ménage_ will be maintained. The man who tries to impose his opinions upon a household because he is allowed to pay all the expenses, is--anyhow, he is not me. CHAPTER THE THIRD