But it was impossible to prevent his thoughts hovering round this bold idea, now it had been flung into the air. Christie Malakite had been the first to toss the fatal little puffball upon the wind. She had done it with the utmost gravity, the gravity of some remote being altogether outside the stream of events. He remembered the peculiar steady look of her brown eyes as she uttered the words. But that this airy nothing of speculation should have received a new impetus from Gerda herself was another matter. He began to wonder what kind of relations existed between these two young girls.

Splashing up the water from a puddle on his right with the end of his stick, he hazarded a direct question on this point.

“I had tea yesterday with Christie Malakite,” he said, “and she told me she was a friend of yours. I liked her so very much.”