And yet he had to admit there was something dignified, even spiritual , about those quaint, cheap objects, waiting there for their absent mistress. “They are the extreme opposite,” he thought, “of that self-satisfied old rascal with the white cat.”

He busied himself with careful preparations for tea, and grew peevishly puzzled at the unexpected difficulties he encountered. “Girls do things so mechanically,” he said to himself, as for the tenth time he walked round their kitchen-table, altering this and that. When all was ready he opened the dresser-drawer, took the cheque from beneath Mukalog, and placed it under Gerda’s plate.

Then he sat down on a hard, high chair and waited, listening to the clock in the parlour. He felt too excited even to smoke a cigarette.