There was a dead silence for a moment between the three of them, broken only by the gibberish of the two clowns, which sounded like the chatter of a pair of impudent parakeets amid the slow, rich Dorsetshire speech about them.

Without pausing to think of the effect of his words on Gerda’s mother, Wolf could not restrain himself from uttering at this juncture the question which so occupied his mind. “By the way, Mrs. Torp, have you, by any chance, seen Miss Malakite here this afternoon? I wanted to find her.”

Mrs. Torp nudged her companion with the handle of her umbrella.