"What is that?" she asked. "Oh, nothing," answered Brett, "only a bit of paper." Just then Simon Darche entered the room and all rose to go in to luncheon together. The old gentleman shook hands with Dolly and with both the men, looking keenly into their faces, but mentioning no names. He was cheerful and ruddy, and a stranger might have expected his conversation to be enlivening. In this however, he would have been egregiously disappointed. "What have you been doing this morning?" asked Mrs. Darche turning to him. She had asked the question every day for years, whenever she had lunched at home. "Very busy, very busy," answered Mr. Darche. His hands did not tremble as he unfolded his napkin, but he seemed to bestow an extraordinary amount of attention on the exact position of the glasses before him, pushing them a little forwards and backwards and glancing at them critically until he was quite satisfied. "Busy, of course," he said and looked cheerfully round the table. "There is no real happiness except in hard work. If I could only make you understand that, Marion, you would be much happier. Early to bed and early to rise." "Makes a man stupid and closes his eyes," observed Brett, finishing the proverb in its modern form. "What, what? What doggerel is that?" "Did you never hear that?" asked Dolly, laughing. "It is from an unwritten and unpublished book--modern proverbs." Simon Darche shook his head and smiled feebly. "Dear me, dear me, I thought you were in earnest," he said. "So he is," said Dolly. "We may have to get up at dawn sometimes, but we are far too much in earnest to go to bed early." This was evidently beyond Simon Darche's comprehension and he relapsed into silence and the consumption of oysters. Mrs. Darche glanced reproachfully at Dolly as though to tell her that she should not chaff the old gentleman, and Vanbrugh came to the rescue. "Do you often get up at dawn, Miss Maylands?" he inquired. "Do I look as if I did?" retorted the young lady. "How in the world should I know," asked Vanbrugh. "Do I look as though I associated with people who got up at dawn?" Brett laughed. "It always amuses me to hear you and Vanbrugh talk, Miss Maylands." "Does it, I am so glad," said Dolly. "Yes, you seem perfectly incapable of saying one word to each other without chaffing." Old Mr. Darche had finished his oysters. "Yes--yes," he observed. "A pair of chaffinches." A moment of silence followed this appalling pun. Then Mrs. Darche laughed a little nervously, and Brett, who wished to help her, followed her example. The old gentleman himself seemed delighted with his own wit. "We are beginning well," said Dolly. "Puns and proverbs with the oysters. What shall we get with the fruit?" Vanbrugh was inclined to suggest that the dessert would probably find them in an idiot asylum, but he wisely abstained from words and tried to turn the conversation into a definite channel.