“I fancy his judgment used to get flattered tolerably often,” ventured Dad.
But she did not hear. Her brows were puckered, and she was murmuring his name in perplexity.
“Brinton,” she mused. “Brinton. It’s queer how natural that name seems to me. Because it isn’t such a common name either. Wait a second and I can tell you where I heard it. My brain’s all full of little scraps of things I’ve heard and tucked away there. I’m rummaging there now, like fury. Presently I’ll find it. Oh, I know!” she broke off.
Then she stopped, ashamed.
“You remember?” he asked miserably.
“No,” she denied. “That is, I can’t remember but one man of that name. Ehud told me about him. Long ago. And it made an impression on me at the time.”
“Tell me about him,” urged Dad.
“Oh, ’tisn’t a nice story. Besides there’s just a bare chance that maybe he was some kin of yours—the name being so uncommon—and I’d hate to hurt your feelings.”
“Go ahead!” he begged, in the same perverse spirit that had prompted him, since his turn of the conversation, to pursue it toward the bitter end. “There are many Brintons. I—I believe a man named Brinton was down in Mexico during the war there. Perhaps that’s where Captain Sessions heard the name?”
“That was the place and that was the man,” she said. “Ehud was in General Scott’s army, you know. A captain of infantry. His regiment was on duty one day at a celebration—for some victory or other—and up rides this Brinton man disgustingly drunk and spoils the whole celebration.