"Nonsense!" she contrived to say, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
"Just a whim," he reiterated. "So I'll take the key, by your leave."
He turned to the door of the inner room and pushed it open, just as he had done awhile ago, and now—as then—he cast a rapid glance round the room.
Klara, through half-closed lids, watched his every movement.
"Why!" he exclaimed, turning back to her, and with a look of well-feigned surprise, "the key is not in its place."
"I know it isn't," she retorted curtly.
"Then where is it?"
"I have put it away."
"When? It was hanging on its usual nail when I first came here this afternoon. I remember the door being open, and my glancing into the room casually. I am sure it was there then."
"It may have been: but I put it away after that."