"Have you," he asked with abrupt irrelevance, "read your paper all through this morning?"
"Not all through. Only the important headlines."
"And you saw nothing about a claim to a peerage?"
"Nothing."
"Well! that's all about it. A man has sprung up from nowhere in particular, who claims to be my uncle Arthur's son, and, therefore, heir presumptive to the title and all."
Luke heaved a deep sigh, as if with this brief if ungrammatical statement, his own heart had been unburdened of a tiresome load.
"Your uncle Arthur?" she repeated somewhat bewildered.
"Yes. You never knew him, did you?"
"No," she said, "I never knew him, though as a baby I must have seen him. I was only three, I think, when he died. But I never heard that he had been married. I am sure father never knew."
"Nor did I, nor did Uncle Rad, nor any of us. The whole thing is either a thunderbolt or . . . an imposture."