“Framed in the open doorway stood, with an air of great serenity, a rather tall young woman, definitely though indefinably artistic—­ her dress the colour of spring and her hair of autumn leaves, with a face which, though still comparatively young, conveyed experience as well as intelligence.  All she said was, `I didn’t hear you come in.’

“`I came in another way,’ said the Permeator, somewhat vaguely. `I’d left my latchkey at home.’

“I got to my feet in a mixture of politeness and mania. `I’m really very sorry,’ I cried. `I know my position is irregular.  Would you be so obliging as to tell me whose house this is?’

“`Mine,’ said the burglar, `May I present you to my wife?’

“I doubtfully, and somewhat slowly, resumed my seat; and I did not get out of it till nearly morning.  Mrs. Smith (such was the prosaic name of this far from prosaic household) lingered a little, talking slightly and pleasantly.  She left on my mind the impression of a certain odd mixture of shyness and sharpness; as if she knew the world well, but was still a little harmlessly afraid of it.  Perhaps the possession of so jumpy and incalculable a husband had left her a little nervous.  Anyhow, when she had retired to the inner chamber once more, that extraordinary man poured forth his apologia and autobiography over the dwindling wine.

“He had been sent to Cambridge with a view to a mathematical and scientific, rather than a classical or literary, career.  A starless nihilism was then the philosophy of the schools; and it bred in him a war between the members and the spirit, but one in which the members were right.  While his brain accepted the black creed, his very body rebelled against it.  As he put it, his right hand taught him terrible things.  As the authorities of Cambridge University put it, unfortunately, it had taken the form of his right hand flourishing a loaded firearm in the very face of a distinguished don, and driving him to climb out of the window and cling to a waterspout.  He had done it solely because the poor don had professed in theory a preference for non-existence.  For this very unacademic type of argument he had been sent down.  Vomiting as he was with revulsion, from the pessimism that had quailed under his pistol, he made himself a kind of fanatic of the joy of life.  He cut across all the associations of serious-minded men.  He was gay, but by no means careless.  His practical jokes were more in earnest than verbal ones.  Though not an optimist in the absurd sense of maintaining that life is all beer and skittles, he did really seem to maintain that beer and skittles are the most serious part of it. `What is more immortal,’ he would cry, `than love and war?  Type of all desire and joy—­beer.  Type of all battle and conquest—­skittles.’

“There was something in him of what the old world called the solemnity of revels—­when they spoke of `solemnizing’ a mere masquerade or wedding banquet.  Nevertheless he was not a mere pagan any more than he was a mere practical joker.  His eccentricities sprang from a static fact of faith, in itself mystical, and even childlike and Christian.