“You’re fond of philosophy?” he added, scowling amiably at her. His thick eyebrows contracted as he did this, and his eyes grew narrow and small.

She seated herself near him upon the sofa and smoothed out her brown skirt thoughtfully with her fingers. She was evidently anxious to answer this important question with a becoming scrupulousness.

With this new gravity upon the features of its mistress, it seemed to Wolf as if the little sitting-room itself awoke from somnolence and asserted its individuality. He observed the unadulterated mid-century style of its cut-glass chandeliers, of its antimacassars, of its rosewood chairs, of its Geneva clock, and of the heavy gold frames of its watercolour pictures. The room, as the morning light fell upon these things across the grey slate roofs and the yellow pansies in the window-box, certainly did possess a charming character of its own, a character to which the thick, dusky carpet and the great mahogany curtain-rod across the window gave the final touches.