table close to the white tiled fireplace. A little square brass clock
chimed the half-hour as Ronder came in.

"I suppose Ellen will be over," Ronder said. He drank in the details of
the room with a quite sensual pleasure. He went over to the Hermes and
lifted it, holding it for a moment in his podgy hands.

"You beauty!" he whispered aloud. He put it back, turned round to his
aunt.

"Of course Ellen will be over," he repeated.

"Of course," Miss Ronder repeated, picking up the old square black lacquer
tea-caddy and peering into it.

He picked up the books on the table--two novels, _Sentimental Tommy_,
by J. M. Barrie, and _Sir George Tressady_, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mr.
Swinburne's _Tale of Balen_, and _The Works of Max Beerbohm_.
Last of all Leslie Stephen's _Social Rights and Duties_.

He looked at them all, with their light yellow Mudie labels, their fresh
bindings, then, slowly and very carefully, put them back on the table.

He always handled books as though they were human beings.

He came and sat down by the fire.

"I won't see over the place until to-morrow," he said. "What have you done
about the other books?"