Mr. Chester in evident embarrassment flicked the ash from his cigar and answered guardedly:
"I used to be there a great deal in the old days. Unfortunately, Madam Bartlett and I had a misunderstanding. As a matter of fact, I have not crossed that threshold in—let me see—it must be fifteen years! It was a party, I remember, given for Eleanor, the little granddaughter, on her fifth birthday."
"Oh, yes!" said Quin, finding Mr. Chester for the first time interesting. "They've got a picture of her taken with Miss Enid in her party dress."
"I suppose you mean this?" Mr. Chester reached over and took from his desk a somewhat faded photograph, in a silver frame, of a little girl leaning against a big girl's shoulders, both enveloped in a cloud of white tulle.
"Gee, but she was pretty!" exclaimed Quin, devouring every detail of Eleanor's chubby features.
"A beautiful woman," sighed Mr. Chester—and Quin, looking up suddenly, surprised a look in his host's eyes that was anything but numerical.
Obligingly relinquishing his application of the pronoun for Mr. Chester's, he said:
"She certainly thinks a lot of you!"
"How do you know?" demanded Mr. Chester.
"From the way she talks. She says people are barking up the wrong tree when they think you are cold and indifferent and all that; says you've got one of the noblest natures she ever knew."