Again Claude caught himself up, shifting his position adroitly. "Oh no, I don't. Just what I've heard father say. When you spoke of it at first the name slipped my memory."
Thor reverted to the original theme. "The son's in jail. Did you know that?"
But Claude was again on his guard. "Oh, so there's a son?"
"Son about your age. Matt his name is. Surely you must recall him. Used to pick pease with us when Fay'd let us do it."
Claude shook his head silently.
"And there's a girl."
Claude's stick hung limply before him. His face and figure resumed their stony immobility. "Oh, is there? Plain?"
"No; pretty. Very pretty. Very unusually pretty. Come to think of it, I shouldn't mind saying—Yes, I will say it! She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen." The eyes of the two brothers met. "Bar none."
The smile on Claude's lips might have passed for an expression of brotherly chaff. "Go it, old chap. Seem smitten."
"Oh, it isn't that. Nothing of the sort at all. I speak of her only because I'm sorry for her. Brunt of whole thing comes on her."