And then again, there would be suddenly that strange distrust; a swift glance from under his eyelids, a suspicious lifting of the voice, as though he were on his guard against some expected discovery. And then, most puzzling of all, there was suddenly a simplicity, a _naïveté_, that belonged to childhood, some anger or pleasure that only a child could feel. Oh! he was a puzzle. At the sight of those two in the window he felt suddenly a sharp, poignant regret! What an old fool he was to meddle with something that he had passed long, long before. You could not be adaptable at forty, and he would only spoil their game. A death’s head at the feast indeed, with his own happy home to think of, his own testimony to fling before them. But the regret was there all the same; regret that he had not known for ever so many years, and a feeling of loneliness that was something altogether new. He knew now that, during these last few days, Tony had filled his picture, some one that would take him out of himself and make him a little less selfish and even, perhaps, a little younger; but now, what did Tony—Tony in love, Tony with a new heaven and a new earth—want with a stout cynic of forty! It would have been better, after all, if they had never met. Suddenly Miss Minns awoke, and was extremely upset. Some half-remembered story of gentlemen winning a pair of gloves under some such circumstances flew to her mind; at any rate it was undignified with two new persons in the room. “I really——” she said. “You were quite a long time. I have been sewing.” At the sound of her voice Tony turned back from the window. He was so happy that he would have clasped Miss Minns round the neck and kissed her, if there had been any provocation. The lamp flung a half-circle of light, leaving the corners in perfect darkness, so that the room was curved like a shell; the shining tiles of the fireplace sparkled under the leaping flame of the fire. “You have been a very long time,” said Janet. “That’s scarcely a compliment to Mr. Gale,” said Morelli. “Oh, but I haven’t found it so,” she answered quickly. “It has been enormously interesting. We have been discovering things. And now, father, play. Mr. Gale loves music, I know.” That Morelli played was a little surprising. There was no piano in the room, and Maradick wondered what the instrument would be. They all sat down in a circle round the fireplace, and behind them, in the dusk of the room, Morelli produced a flute from his pocket. He had said nothing, and they were all of them suddenly silent. The incident seemed to Maradick a key—a key to the house, to the man, and, above all, to the situation. This was not a feeling that he could in the least understand. It was only afterwards that he saw that his instinct had been a right one.