“I hope she won’t be too radiant before they leave,” retorted Wolf grimly. “I don’t want many repetitions of this particular tea-party.”

She kept the door open till he was halfway downstairs, and they nodded rather dolorously at each other across the banisters. He heard the door shut as he entered the shop below, and a pang passed through him.

As he walked rapidly home, he found himself engaged in an imaginary dialogue with his father.

The skeleton under those obstinate plantains kept grinning mockingly in reply to every argument. “Life is short,” said the skeleton, “and the love of girls is the only escape from its miseries.”

“It’s not so short as all that,” retorted the son, “and in every Paradise there is a snake!”