“I know you did,” said Ronnie.  “You left me no possible loop-hole for doubt in the matter.  But your quite mistaken view, on that occasion, arose from an incorrect estimate of values.  I paid one pound, six shillings and three-pence for the two seats, and three pounds, eighteen and nine-pence for the pleasure of sitting alone with my wife, and thought it cheap at that.  It was a far lower price than the actual need demanded; therefore, by your own showing, it was not extravagant.”

“Oh, what a boy it is!” sighed Helen, with a little gesture of despair.  “Then, last Christmas, Ronnie, you insisted upon feting the old people with all kinds of unnecessary luxuries.  They had always been quite content with wholesome bread-and-butter, plum cake, and nice hot tea.  They did not require pate de foie gras and champagne, nor did they understand or really enjoy them.  One old lady, in considerable distress, confided to me the fact that the champagne tasted to her ’like physic with a fizzle in it.’  It made most of them ill, Ronnie, and cost at least eight times as much as my simple Christmas parties of other years.  So don’t go and spend an unnecessary sum on an elaborate, and probably less useful, instrument.  I will write you full particulars when the time comes.  Oh, Ronnie, you will be so nearly home, by then!  How shall I wait?”

“I shall love to feel I have something to do for you in Leipzig,” said Ronnie; “and I enjoy poking about among crowds of queer instruments.  I should like to have played in Nebuchadnezzar’s band.  I should have played the sackbut, because I haven’t the faintest notion how you work the thing—­whether you blow into it, or pull it in and out, or tread upon it; nor what manner of surprising sound it emits, when you do any or all of these things.  I love springing surprises on myself and on other people; and I know I do best the things which, if I considered the matter beforehand, I shouldn’t have the veriest ghost of a notion how to set about doing.  That, darling, is inspiration!  I should have played the sackbut by inspiration; whereupon Nebuchadnezzar would instantly have had me cast into the burning fiery furnace.”

“Oh, Ronnie, I wish I could laugh!  But to-morrow is so near.  What shall I do when there is nobody here to tell me silly stories?”

“Ask Mademoiselle Victorine to try her hand at it.  Say:  ’Chere Mademoiselle, s’il-vous-plait, racontez-moi une extremement sotte histoire.’”

“Ronnie, do stop chaffing!  Go and play me something really beautiful, and sing very softly, as you did the other night; so that I can hear the tones of the piano and your voice vibrating together.”

“No,” said Ronnie, “I can’t.  I have a cast-iron lump in my throat just now, and not a note could pass it.  Besides, I don’t really play the piano.”

He stretched out his foot, and kicked a log into the fire.

The flame shot up, illumining the room.  The log-fire, and the two seated near it, were reflected fitfully in the distant mirror.