"I don't believe you are," returned her mother, smiling, "but the same cannot be said of some other things; you certainly are an excitable young person. How did he happen to tell you all this?"
"I don't know. He said he was impelled to, that he never did speak of it, but that somehow he wanted to confide in me, in me. Think of it. Oh, I can tell you that it was as much as I could do not to let him know who he was talking to. Was I deceitful, I wonder."
"Perhaps you were somewhat so, but if all goes well and he returns from London with his sight restored I think he will forgive the deceit."
"You like him, mother, after seeing him and knowing him as a nurse does a patient, you do like him, don't you?"
"I like him very much indeed, more and more as I know him better."
"You darling to say so. You will have two sons instead of one, and we shall all be so happy together."
"Two sons? Ah, my dear, my dear, if I could but be sure. I am beginning to fear that our quest will never come to anything."
"Oh, yes it will. Mr. Kirkby told me to-day that he believed he had another clue and that he would follow it up at once. He is going up to London with Terrence, you know. Wouldn't it be dreadful if I were to forget and call him Terrence to his face?"
"Do you think he would be offended if you did?"
"Perhaps not so much offended as astonished. Do you know I am rather jealous of myself. I am suddenly seeing myself as a rival. Isn't that ridiculous? He knows me as Anita Beltrán, a girl whom he has been acquainted with but a short time and here he goes to work and confides in her; it is always a bad sign. Suppose he should fall in love with Anita and forget Nancy."