“Oh!” ejaculated Trix. And further expression failed her.

“Please don’t let me disturb you,” came a suave, courteous old voice. “You were looking for something perhaps?”

“I only wanted to see the library,” stuttered Trix, flabbergasted, dismayed.

“Well, this is the library. May I ask how you found your way in?”

“Through a door,” responded Trix, voicing the obvious.

“Ah! I did not know visitors were being admitted to the house?” This on a note of interrogation, flavoured with the faintest hint of irony, though the courtesy was still not lacking.

Trix coloured.

“I wasn’t admitted,” she owned. “I just came.”

“Ah, I see,” said the white-haired man still courteously. “You perhaps were not aware that your presence might be an—er, an intrusion.”

Again Trix coloured.