Pepé eyed this outspoken great-aunt rather distrustfully. He had not been happy in his experience with great-aunts, but Anita was not to be downed, and shot out another question. "Had you any idea before you saw Mr. Kirkby that you had a mother and sister living?" This time Aunt Manning made no criticism. It was a perfectly legitimate inquiry.
"I thought perhaps the mother, the sister, no. I had never heard of her, you see."
"And I have known about you for over two years," said Anita, wistfully. "We have much to learn about each other. Did Mr. Kirkby tell you of how we searched for you in Spain?"
"Something of it."
"To think," Mrs. Beltrán spoke, "that we should have been so near you there in Gracia, so near that we saw you every day and spoke of you so often. I was much drawn to you then, my dear son, but I did not know why; I thought it was because you reminded me of my English cousins, of English lads, but all the time it was that my heart recognized you when my eyes did not."
"What I am curious to know," said Lillian, "is how Mr. Kirkby discovered you."
"Exactly what I was going to ask," cried Aunt Manning. "Was it through the detective in London, Ernest?"
"No, he was working on the supposition that an Englishman was responsible for the boy's coming to this country. I don't know by what process my mind formed the theory that the Abercrombie who visited old Mrs. Potter, and brought with him a Spanish lad might possibly be the man we were seeking, but it was around that possibility that my train of thought seemed more and more to move, and when I questioned her I was convinced that there might be something in it, so I took down the addresses on the last batch of post-cards she had received from Mr. Abercrombie and thought I would try to follow him up, beginning at the address on the card last received. It happened to be a picture of a hotel in London which I argued he might well be stopping at. It was there I went first. He was not there, but I received his address at Southampton from which port he was about to sail, and there I caught him. Like the fine fellow he is he urged this young man to make no delay in reaching his mother, and so we made our farewells and took the first train for Chichester."
"It is wonderful, wonderful," said Aunt Manning, thoughtfully, "but why did you always act upon the supposition that this Mr. Abercrombie, or whoever might be Joseph's friend, must necessarily be an Englishman?"
"In Spain those who speak English are called Ingles. Everyone who told us of this friend of Pepé's said he went with an Ingles to England. As they went to England, naturally we thought only of his being an Englishman," Mrs. Beltrán explained.