(A fragment of the conversation in Lady Beach-Mandarin's returning automobile¹ may be recorded in a parenthesis² here.  
"But did you see Sir Isaac?" she cried, abruptly³.
 
"Sir Isaac?" defended the startled Mr. Brumley. "Where?"
 
"He was dodging⁴ about in the garden all the time."
 
"Dodging about the garden!... I saw a sort of gardener——"
 
"I'm sure I saw Him," said Lady Beach-Mandarin. "Positive. He hid away in the mushroom shed. The one you found locked."
 
"But my dear Lady Beach-Mandarin!" protested Mr. Brumley with the air of one who listens to preposterous⁵ suggestions. "What can make you think——?"
 
"Oh I know I saw him," said Lady Beach-Mandarin. "I know. He seemed all over the place. Like a Boy Scout⁶. Didn't you see him too, Susan?"
 
Miss Sharsper was roused from deep preoccupation. "What, dear?" she asked.
 
"See Sir Isaac?"
 
"Sir Isaac?"
 
"Dodging about the garden when we went through it."
 
The novelist reflected. "I didn't notice," she said. "I was busy observing things.")
 
6
Lady Beach-Mandarin's car passed through the open gates and was swallowed up in the dusty stream of traffic down Putney Hill; the great butler withdrew, the little manservant vanished, Mrs. Sawbridge and her elder daughter had hovered⁷ and now receded⁸ from the back of the hall; Lady Harman remained standing⁹ thoughtfully in the large Bulwer-Lyttonesque doorway¹⁰ of her house. Her face expressed a vague expectation. She waited to be addressed from behind.
 
Then she became aware of the figure of her husband standing before her. He had come out of the laurels¹¹ in front. His pale face was livid with anger, his hair dishevelled, there was garden mould and greenness upon his knees and upon his extended hands.
 
She was startled out of her quiet defensiveness¹². "Why, Isaac!" she cried. "Where have you been?"
 
It enraged¹⁴ him further to be asked so obviously unnecessary a question. He forgot his knightly¹⁵ chivalry¹⁶.
 
"What the Devil do you mean," he cried, "by chasing me all round the garden?"
 
"Chasing you? All round the garden?"
 
"You heard me breaking my shins on that infernal flower-pot you put for me, and out you shot wit............