“Oh! father’s so different—you never know. Sometimes he’s just as I am, plays and sings and tells stories. And then, oh! he’s such fun. There never was anybody like him. And sometimes he’s very quiet and won’t say anything, and then he always goes away, perhaps it’s only a day or two, and then it’s a week or a month even. And sometimes,” she paused again for a moment, “he’s angry, terribly angry, so that I am awfully frightened.” “What! with you?” Tony asked indignantly. “No; with no one exactly, but it’s dreadful. I go and hide.” And then she burst out laughing. “Oh, and once he caught Miss Minns like that, and he pulled her hair and it fell all over her shoulders. Oh! it was so funny. And a lot of it came out altogether; it was false, you know. I think that father is just like a child. He’s ever so much younger than I am really. I’m getting dreadfully old, and he’s as young as can be. He tells stories—beautiful stories! and then he’s cross and he sulks, and sometimes he’s out of doors for days together, and all the animals simply love him.” All these facts she brought out, as it were, in a bunch, without any very evident connexion, but he felt that the cord that bound them was there and that he could find it one day. But what surprised him most was her curious aloofness from it all, as if he were a friend, perhaps a chum, sometimes a bother and sometimes a danger, but never a father. “But tell me about yourself,” he said, “what you like and what you do.” “No, there’s really nothing. I’ve just lived here always, that’s all. You’re the first man I’ve talked to, except father, and you’re fun. I hope that we shall see you sometimes whilst you are staying here,” she added, quite frankly. “Somebody told you to say that,” he said, laughing. “Yes, it’s Miss Minns. She teaches me sometimes about what you ought to say, and I’m dreadfully stupid. There are so many of them. There’s ‘at a wedding’ and ‘at a funeral’ and there’s ‘the dinner party,’ a nice one and a dull one and a funny one, and there’s ‘at the theatre,’ and lots more. Sometimes I remember, but I’ve never had anyone to practise them on. You’re quite the first, so I think I ought to give you them all.” The door opened and Maradick and Morelli came in. The pair at the window did not see them and the two men stood for a moment at the door. Morelli smiled, and Maradick at once felt again that curious unfounded sensation of distrust. The man amazed him. He had talked about his “things,” his armour, some tapestry, some pictures, with a knowledge and enthusiasm that made him fascinating. He seemed to have the widest possible grip on every subject; there was nothing that he did not know. And there had been, too, a lightness of touch, a humorous philosophy of men and things for which he had been quite unprepared.