His mind cannot escape the subject of the Persian’s box, which he deposits, without even so much as a second of hesitation, beneath the house, in the Cellar. The transformation of the upper levels of the house, however, not even his weary nose is ready for. The overwhelming scent of Almonds assaults his battered nostrils as he realises he has been walking through a series of exhibits, each of which has been finished, to the last detail, with pure Marzipan, almost white. For a moment he is astonished at the spectacle.

Blanche! he pronounces.

His wife looks up from her Fiction and beams.

Peele! You have arrived! We were beginning to wonder whether you would make it, with the snow bandits and —

Indeed, mutters Peele quietly, and I am beginning to wonder, Blanche, what has been confected during the trimester I have spent away from this House.

Well I judge it better, Blanche concludes, to leave what’s beneath us where it lies — being, unlike you, unwilling to waste time on regrets.

Peele remonstrates with her severely but she will not budge.

Having trodden the traders’ paths for three cycles of the moon and more, ranging in your sojourns from the Italian south and its islands, to the streets of Toledo westwards, north as far as the Scandinavian pole, east to the borders of Barbary, or so I approximate now, adds Blanche with a sudden grin, well, dear, a trifling confection such as a Harem — I mean, it’s hardly proper for you to be angry upon that subject at all, is it?