filled the little drawing-room in which the mass of feminine ornaments
glimmered and glittered.

"I've really become quite a stranger here," he thought, regarding all
these things with the curiosity of one who has come after an absence.
From each object hung, like a dewdrop, the memory of some
exquisite hour.

"You look about you so," Alice said with an undertone of anxiety in
her voice, "don't you like it here any longer?"

"What are you thinking of," he exclaimed, "I like it better daily."
She was about to reply but fell silent and looked into space with a
smile of wistful irony.

"If I except the _Life of Jesus_ and the Kantian--what do you call the
things?"

"Antinomies."

"Aha--_anti_ and _nomos_--I understand--well, if I except these dusty
superfluities, I may say that your furnishings are really faultless.
The quotations from Goethe are really more appropriate, although I
could do without them."

"I'll have them swept out," she said in playful submission.

"You are a dear girl," he said playfully and passed his hand
caressingly over her severely combed hair.