“Oh! she trusts you,” said Tony confidently. “That’s why it’s so perfectly splendid your being there. And then,” went on Tony, “they are all of them wondering what we are at. You see, Treliss has that effect on people, or at any rate it’s having that kind of effect on us here and now. Everybody is feeling uneasy about something, and they are most of them putting it down to me. Things always do happen when you jumble a lot of people together in a hotel, the gods can’t resist a game; and when you complicate it by putting them in Treliss! My word!” “Well, what’s the immediate complication?” asked Maradick. The water had made his hair curl all over his head, and his shirt was open at the neck and his sleeves rolled up over his arms. “Well, the most immediate one,” said Tony slowly, “is Alice, Miss Du Cane. She was talking to me before lunch. It’s rather caddish to say anything about it, but I tell you everything, you know. Well, she seemed to think I’d been neglecting her and was quite sick about it. She never is sick about anything, because she’s much too solid, and so I don’t know what’s set her off this time. She suspects a lot.” Maradick said nothing. “But the funny thing is that they should worry at all. Before, when I’ve done anything they’ve always said, ‘Oh! Tony again!’ and left it at that. Now, when I’ve done nothing, they all go sniffing round.” “Yes,” said Maradick, “that’s the really funny thing; that nothing has been done for them to sniff at, yet. I suppose, as a matter of fact, people have got so little to do in a hotel that they worry about nothing just to fill up time.” He stretched his arms and yawned. “No,” said Tony, “it’s the place. Whom the gods wish to send mad they first send to Treliss. It’s in the air. Ask that old fellow, Morelli.” “Why Morelli?” Maradick asked quickly. “Well, it’s absurd of me,” said Tony. “But I don’t mind betting that he knows all about it. He’s uncanny; he knows all about everything. It’s just as if he set us all dancing to his tune like the Pied Piper.” He laughed. “Just think! all of us dancing; you and I, mother, father, Alice, Rupert, the Lesters, Mrs. Maradick, Mrs. Lawrence—and Janet!” he added suddenly. “Janet,” he said, catching Maradick’s arm and walking up the beach. “Can’t you see her dancing? that hair and those eyes! Janet!” “I’m sleepy,” said Maradick unsympathetically. “I shall lie with my head in the gorse and snore.” He was feeling absolutely right in every part of his body; his blood ran in his veins like a flame. He hummed a little tune as he climbed the path. “Why! that’s Morelli’s tune,” said Tony, “I’d been trying to remember it; the tune he played that night,” and then suddenly they saw Mrs. Lester.