of father and mother and two elderly daughters--Germans.
Beyond them, at the corner of the ter-race,
sat what were clearly an English mother and
Son.
The woman was about fifty-five. She ha
d gray
hair of a pretty tone--was sensibly but not fash-ionably
dressed in a tweed coat and skirt--and
had that comfortable self-possession which marks
an Englishwoman used to much traveling abroad.
The young man who sat opposite her might
have been twenty-five and he too was typical of his
82
Agatha Christie
class and age. He was neither good-looking nor
plain, tall nor short. He was clearly on the best of
terms with lis mother--they made little jokes
together--and he was assiduous in passing her
things.
As they talked, her eye met that of Mr. Parker
Pyne. It passed over him with well-bred noncha-lance,
but he knew that he had been assimilated
and labeled.
He had been recognized as English and doubt-less,
in due course, some pleasant noncommittal
remark would be addressed to him.
Mr. Parker Pyne had no particular objection.
His own courttrymen and women abroad were in-clined
to bore him slightly, but he was quite will-ing
to pass the time of day in an amiable manner.