"We must find out! I shall ask her." But at that very moment the cab rolled away, empty inside, and the door of the house which had been standing slightly ajar till then was pushed to.
They remained silent staring at it till Mrs.Fyne whispered doubtfully "I really think I must go over." Fyne didn't answer for a while (his is a reflective mind, you know), and then as if Mrs.Fyne's whispers had an occult power over that door it opened wide again and the white-bearded man issued, astonishingly active in his movements, using his stick almost like a leaping-pole to get down the steps; and hobbled away briskly along the pavement.

Naturally the Fynes were too far off to make out the expression of his face.

But it would not have helped them very much to a guess at the conditions inside the house.

The expression was humorously puzzled--nothing more.
For, at the end of his lesson, seizing his trusty stick and coming out with his habitual vivacity, he very nearly cannoned just outside the drawing-room door into the back of Miss de Barral's governess.

He stopped himself in time and she turned round swiftly.