It was at this moment that Miss Beatrice began, in the background, to adjust her camera. She told her mother and sister afterwards that she seemed to feel it in her bones that something was doing.
Mrs. Slifer, emerging from her breaker in triumph, struck out, blinking and smiling affably. "We heard all about the wedding in America," she said, "and we thought we might call upon her in London and see that splendid temple you'd given her—we heard all about that, too. I never saw a picture of him, but I knew her in a minute, naturally, though she did look so pulled down. Why, Baroness—what's the matter!"
Madame von Marwitz had suddenly clutched Mrs. Slifer's arm with an almost appalling violence of mien and gesture.
"What is the matter?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, shaking Mrs. Slifer's arm. "Do you know what you are saying? My niece has been lost for a week! The whole country is searching for her! Where have you seen her? When was it? Answer me at once!"
"Why Baroness, by all means, but you needn't shake my head off," said Mrs. Slifer, not without dignity, raising her free hand to straighten her hat. "We've never heard a word about it. Why this is perfectly providential.—Baroness—I must ask you not to go on shaking me like that. I've got a very delicate stomach and the least thing upsets my digestion."
"Justes cieux!" Madame von Marwitz cried, dropping Mrs. Slifer's arm and raising her hands to her head, while, in the background, Miss Beatrice's kodak gave a click—"Will the woman drive me mad! Karen! My child! Where is she!"
"Why, we saw her at the station at Brockenhurst—in the New Forest—didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been—now let me see—" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday—and we stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive about that part of the forest and we were taking the train and they had just come and we saw them on the opposite platform. He was just helping her out of the train and we didn't have any time to go round and speak to them—"
"They!" Madame von Marwitz nearly shouted. "She was with a man! Last Saturday! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender—with fair hair—dark eyes—the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, failed to snap it.
"Why no," said Mrs. Slifer, keeping her clue. "I shouldn't say a poetical looking man, should you, Maude? A fleshy man—very big and fleshy, and he was taking such good care of her and looked so kind of tender and worried that I concluded he was her husband. She looked like a very sick woman, Baroness."
"Fleshy?" Madame von Marwitz repeated, and the word, in her moan, was almost graceful. "Fleshy, you say? An old man? A stout old man?" she held her hands distractedly pressed to her head. "What stout old man does Karen know? Is it a stranger she has met?"