Wolf took advantage of her absence to move across to a bookshelf which already had attracted his attention. What first arrested his interest now was an edition of Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial . He took this book down from the shelf, and was dreamily turning its pages, when the girl returned with a glass of claret in her hand. Hurriedly replacing the book in its place and raising the wine to his lips, he could not resist commenting upon some other, more abstruse volumes that her bookshelf contained.

“I see you read Leibnitz, Miss Malakite,” he said. “Don’t you find those ‘monads’ of his hard to understand? You’ve got Hegel there, too, I notice. I’ve always been rather attracted to him ⁠—though just why, I’d be puzzled to tell you.”

He settled himself again in his wicker-chair, wineglass in hand.