lip to-night? You mustn't kiss
Helen again, until that lip is well. Helen will be ashamed of you for
not being able to put fuel into a stove without knocking your lip. Fie,
man! Poor happy Ronnie, going home to show his wife his 'cello, believed
you. But the Upas tree knows! You can't deceive the Upas tree, you liar!
You may as well tell Helen that you wounded your lip on a branch of her
Upas tree....

"Hullo, Dick! Come in, and welcome! Sit down, old boy. I want to ask you
something. Hist! Listen! That motor, which hooted in the park a moment
ago, contained a policeman--so it is essential we should know whether
there is any by-law in Leipzig against men, as trees, walking. Because
you weren't walking about with a man, you know, but with a Upas tree.
When in doubt, ask--my wife! It would have made a sensational paragraph
in the papers: 'Arrest of a Upas tree, in the streets of Leipzig!' Worse
than 'Arrest of the Infant of Prague.' ... Why! Where is the Infant?"

He turned and saw his 'cello, where he had placed it, leaning against a
chair.

He rose, took it up, and walked over to the piano.

"A, D, G, C. 'Allowable delights grow commonplace!' What did the fiend
mean? C, G, D, A. 'Courage gains desired aims.' That's better! We aimed
pretty straight at his lying mouth."

He opened the piano, struck the notes, and tuned the 'cello exactly as
he had seen Aubrey do.

At the first sound of the strings his mood changed. All bitterness
passed out of his face. A look of youth and hope dawned in it.

He carried the 'cello back to the circle of chairs. He placed it where
it had stood before; then lay back in his own seat smiling dreamily at
the empty chair opposite.

"Helen," he said, "darling, I don't really play the piano, I only strum.
But there is one instrument, above all others, which I have always
longed to play. I have it now. I own the 'cello I have always loved and
longed for; the 'cello on which I used to play a hundred years ago. Now
I am going to play to you; and you will forget everything in this world,
my wife, excepting that I love you."

He drew the Infant between his knees; then realised at once that his
chair was too low.

Rising, he went over to a corner where, against the wall, stood a
beautiful old chair which he and Helen had brought back, the winter
before, from Italy. Its arms and feet of walnut wood, were carved into
lions' heads and paws. Its back bore, in a medallion, the Florentine
_fleur