The smile came back—faintly.
“You seem to know all about it, don’t you? It’s the strangest thing I ever knew. No one in this world could have told you but himself. Yes, he did say he was hungry; but then, a man who’d been what he must have been shouldn’t have got into that condition. He’d stolen into our pantry, poor creature, and drunk the cooking-wine. He told me that—” Without rising, her figure became alert with a new impulse. “Oh, I see! You do know him. He was an Englishman. I remember that.”
I placed myself fully before her. “No, he wasn’t an Englishman.”
“He spoke like one.”
“So do I, for the matter of that.”
“Then he was a Canadian. Was he?”
“He was a Canadian.”
“Oh, then that accounts for it. But you did puzzle me at first. But how did you come to meet him? Was it at that Down and Out Club that papa and Mr. Christian are so interested in? You go to it, too, don’t you? I think Stephen Cantyre said you did.”
“Yes, I go to it, too.”
She grew pensive, resting her chin on a hand, with her elbow on the arm of the chair.