"And how long have you known I was his daughter?"

Mr. Karslake, consulting a wrist-watch, permitted himself a quiet smile.

"Thirty-eight minutes," he announced--"say, thirty-nine."

"But how did you find out--?"

"Your father called me up--can't say from where--said he'd just learned you
were acting as cashier at the Café des Exiles, and would I be good enough
to take you firmly by the hand and lead you home."

"And how did he learn--?"

"That he didn't say. 'Fraid you'll have to ask him, Princess Sofia."

Genuinely diverted by the cross-examination, he awaited with unruffled good
humour the next question to be put by this amazingly collected and direct
young person. But Sofia hesitated. She didn't want to be rude, and Karslake
seemed to be telling a tolerably straight story; still, she couldn't
altogether believe in him as yet. She couldn't help it if his visit to the
restaurant had been a shade too opportune, his account of himself too
confoundedly pat.

No: she wasn't in the least afraid. Even if she were being kidnapped, she
wasn't afraid. She was so young, so absurdly confident in her ability to
take care of herself. On the other hand, intuition kept admonishing her
that in real life things simply didn't happen like this, so smoothly, so
fortunately; somehow, somewhere, in this curious affair, something must be
wrong.