The appalling upper-lip vibrated like the end of a tapir’s proboscis, and the grey eyes blinked as if he had shot off a pistol.

“What?” she cried, letting her hands fall heavily upon her knees, like the hands of a flabbergasted sorceress, palms downward and fingers outspread. “ What’s that you’re saying, boy?”

“I am saying that I’ve come to a shrewd certainty,” said Wolf firmly, “that Mattie Smith and I have the same father.”

Miss Gault astonished him by putting her elbows on to the table and covering her face with her extended fingers; through which her eyes now regarded him. She was not weeping⁠—he could see that. Was she laughing at him? There was something so queer in this gesture, that he felt an uneasy discomfort. It was as if she had suddenly turned into a different person, as different from the Miss Gault he knew, as the new Mattie they were talking about was different from the one he had met in that Victorian dining-room.