The merry-go-round in front of which they had passed was isolated from the rest. They proceeded to push their way through the crowds towards the next one, which was some three hundred yards further on.

Suddenly they saw before them the anxious little figure of Mrs. Otter, leaning on Darnley’s arm; while Jason, his melancholy gaze surveying the scene as if he were a Gaulish captive in a Roman triumph, was standing apart, like one who had no earthly link with his relations⁠—or with anyone else.

Wolf felt singularly disinclined to cope with these people at that moment. He had received of late so many contradictory impressions, that his brain felt like an overcrowded stage. But he gathered his wits together as well as he could, and for a while they all five stood talking rather wearily, exchanging commonplaces as if they had been at a garden-party rather than a fair.