Jack Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders. He had a man's typical disbelief in the ability of his wife's relatives. CHAPTER FIVE. AN EXPLOSION. Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger. "I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the flame. He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside, the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to take shape in his brain. "...And the worker worked from the misty dawn, Till the east was golden and red; But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn, Lived on when they both were dead..." "I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee, and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he _is_ half daft at times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City. It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon, and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute _resume_ of the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.