The expression of her face changed slightly, which might have been due to the expression of mine.
“We have perhaps grown too frank with each other,” she said, “but you are a being from another world, and that must excuse us,—shall it?”
I bowed, unable to speak.
“One of the children I spoke of, a little girl of six, is my own natural child.”
She made this extraordinary confession with her glance fixed steadily upon mine.
I am a man of considerable nerve, but for a moment the world was dark to me and I had the sensation of one falling from a great height. And then suddenly relief came to me in the thought, She is not to be judged by the standards that measure morality in my country! When I could command my voice again I asked:
“Does this little one know that she is your child,—does any one else know?”
“Certainly not,” she answered in a tone of surprise, and then with an ironical smile, “I have treated you to an exceptional confidence. It is a matter of etiquette with us to keep these things hidden.”
As I made no response she added: