Geoffrey strolled away round the house. There was a short cut to the place where Ralph was seated, and this short cut lay along the lawn. Geoffrey's feet made no noise. As he passed the window of the sitting-room he looked in.
The place was full of flowers, white flowers everywhere. There were azaleas and geraniums and carnations, with delicate foliage of tender green, thousands of blooms, arranged wherever a specimen glass or a bowl could go.
Standing with his back to the window, a man was arranging them. And the man was a Hindoo, or other Eastern, one of the men Geoffrey had seen going through that queer incantation on the cliffs. Strange, more than strange, that Mrs. Jessop had said nothing of him.
Geoffrey prudently slipped away before he had been seen. He found his uncle doggedly smoking under the hedge. He looked like patience personified.
"Well," he said, "have you anything wonderful to relate?"
"Pretty well," Geoffrey replied. "To begin with, I have actually seen the lady."
"Ah! But go on. Tell me everything, everything mind, to the minutest detail."
Geoffrey proceeded to explain. Whether he was interesting his listener or not he could not tell, for Ralph had assumed his most wooden expression; indeed, a casual spectator would have said that he was not paying the slightest attention. Then he began to ask questions, in a languid way, but Geoffrey could see that they were all to the point.
"I should not be surprised," he said, "if the man you saw in the house was one of the men you saw on the cliffs. Mrs. Jessop said nothing about him, because she knew nothing. So he was arranging the lady's flowers. What flowers?"
"Azaleas and carnations and geraniums. Nothing else."