"I should expect to have to take off my shoes, and put on a white
cassock over my tennis flannels before I could enter here," he observed.

"You would not be allowed to enter, even in that inappropriate costume,"
I replied. "I keep this room only for the very nicest of my girl
friends. The trouble is----"

"The trouble is--you're full up with our bunch, and have got to put Miss
Althea here, whether she turns out to be the sort or not."

I had not expected the Skeptic to be so shrewd--shrewd though he often
is. Being also skeptical, his skepticism sometimes overcolours his
imagination.

"Suppose she should leave her slippers kicking around over those
white rugs, drop her kimono in the middle of that pond-lily bed,
and--er--attach a mound of chewing-gum to the corner of the mirror,"
he propounded.

"I should send her home."

"No--you could do better than that. Make her change rooms with the
Philosopher. He wouldn't leave a speck the size of a molecule on all
that whiteness."

"I don't believe he would," I agreed. As the Skeptic went laughing away
downstairs I turned again into the room, in order that I might tie back
the little inner muslin curtains, to let the green branches outside show
between.