"All right. _We're_ off to Lake Garda next week. This new play has taken it out of Will tremendously. He wants a rest and fresh surroundings. It's to be the biggest piece of work he's done--so far, and it's straining him. And people worry him here; receptions, first nights, dinners, speeches. He's so neat, you know, in his speeches.... But it wastes him. He wants to get away. How's Rag?" "Busy." "Lecturing?" "And his Research of course." "Oh! of course. How's the Babe?" "Just in. Come up and see the little beast, Daffy! It is getting so pretty, and it talks----" Margharita dominated intercourse for a time. She was one of those tactful infants who exactly resemble their fathers and exactly resemble their mothers, and have a charm and individuality quite distinctly their own, and she was now beginning to converse with startling enterprise and intelligence. "Big, big, bog," she said at the sight of Daffy. "Remembers you," said Marjorie. "Bog! Go ta-ta!" said Margharita. "There!" said Marjorie, and May, the nurse in the background, smiled unlimited appreciation. "Bably," said Margharita. "That's herself!" said Marjorie, falling on her knees. "She talks like this all day. Oh de sweetums, den!" _Was_ it? Daffy made amiable gestures and canary-like noises with her lips, and Margharita responded jovially. "You darling!" cried Marjorie, "you delight of life," kneeling by the cot and giving the crowing, healthy little mite a passionate hug. "It's really the nicest of babies," Daffy conceded, and reflected.... "I don't know what I should do with a kiddy," said Daffy, as the infant worship came to an end; "I'm really glad we haven't one--yet. He'd love it, I know. But it would be a burthen in some ways. They _are_ a tie. As he says, the next few years means so much for him. Of course, here his reputation is immense, and he's known in Germany, and there are translations into Russian; but he's still got to conquer America, and he isn't really well known yet in France. They read him, of course, and buy him in America, but they're--_restive_. Oh! I do so wish they'd give him the Nobel prize, Madge, and have done with it! It would settle everything. Still, as he says, we mustn't think of that--yet, anyhow. He isn't venerable enough. It's doubtful, he thinks, that they would give the Nobel prize to any humorist now that Mark Twain is dead. Mark Twain was different, you see, because of the German Emperor and all that white hair and everything."