‘Our own little Erik,’ screamed Mrs Momeby, pouncing on him and nearly smothering him with kisses; ‘did he hide in the roly-poly to give us all a big fright?’

This was the obvious explanation of the child’s sudden disappearance and equally abrupt discovery. There remained, however, the problem of the interloping baby, which now sat whimpering on the lawn in a disfavour as chilling as its previous popularity had been unwelcome. The Momebys glared at it as though it had wormed its way into their short-lived affections by heartless and unworthy pretences. Miss Gilpet’s face took on an ashen tinge as she stared helplessly at the bunched-up figure that had been such a gladsome sight to her eyes a few moments ago.

‘When love is over, how little of love even the lover understands,’ quoted Clovis to himself.

Rose-Marie was the first to break the silence.

‘If that is Erik you have in your arms, who is—that?’

‘That, I think, is for you to explain,’ said Mrs Momeby stiffly.

‘Obviously,’ said Clovis, ‘it’s a duplicate Erik that your powers of faith called into being. The question is: What are you going to do with him?’

The ashen pallor deepened in Rose-Marie’s cheeks. Mrs Momeby clutched the genuine Erik closer to her side, as though she feared that her uncanny neighbour might out of sheer pique turn him into a bowl of gold-fish.

‘I found him sitting in the middle of the road,’ said Rose-Marie weakly.

‘You can’t take him back and leave him there,’ said Clovis; ‘the highway is meant for traffic, not to be used as a lumber-room for disused miracles.’

Rose-Marie wept. The proverb ‘Weep and you weep alone,’ broke down as badly on application as most of its kind. Both babies were wailing lugubriously, and the parent Momebys had scarcely recovered from their earlier lachrymose condition. Clovis alone maintained an unruffled cheerfulness.

‘Must I keep him always?’ asked Rose-Marie dolefully.

‘Not always,’ said Clovis consolingly; ‘he can go into the Navy when he’s thirteen.’ Rose-Marie wept afresh.

‘Of course,’ added Clovis, ‘there may be no end of a bother about his birth certificate. You’ll have to explain matters to the Admiralty, and they’re dreadfully hidebound.’

It was rather a relief when a breathless nursemaid from the Villa Charlottenburg over the way came running across the lawn to claim little Percy, who had slipped out of the front gate and disappeared like a twinkling from the high road.

And even then Clovis found it necessary to go in person to the kitchen to make sure about the asparagus sauce.