“My dearest one!” she murmured, with a rich gusto of tenderness in her voice; and stretching out her rounded arm, she stroked the back of one of his hands. As she did this her formidable lineaments assumed the warm, amorous playfulness of a dusky-skinned puma, dallying with its firstborn in a sunlit glade of the jungle!

“How much healthier-minded she is,” he thought, “than I am! But so was he , too, after his fashion. It’s the mixture of them in me, I suppose, that creates these miseries of indecision!”

“Well, Mother darling,” he said aloud, as he got up from his seat, and, taking her head between his hands, kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I won’t tease you about Willum’s Mill, if you won’t tease me about the Malakite shop. We’ll agree to be indulgent to each other’s outrageous behaviour! I’ll try and learn your philosophy and accept my badness as part of the game. Goodbye, dear one! I’ll come in sometime tomorrow.” And with that he snatched up the manuscript from the table and took himself off.