"Oh, Lor', yes!" she exclaimed gleefully. "Mr. Burke was a great friend of our Uncle Sam's. He told me so the first time we met; in fac', that's how I come to know him, wasn't it, Mr. Burke?"
She ran on, without waiting for any answer: "Uncle used to call him 'Jim,' and to say he looked forward to his coming every day that time when he had to lay up for two months with that sprained ankle of his——"
"When was that, Cousin Nellie, if I may ask?" put in the young American quietly.
"Why, that was just a twelvemonth ago, Mr. Burke told me; didn't you, Mr. Burke?" ran on the unsuspecting Miss Million, while I, standing still in the background as a well-trained lady's-maid should do, permitted myself one glance at the face of that young pretender.
It was blank as a stone mask. I looked at Mr. Jessop. His grave, penetrating eyes were fixed upon that mask.
As for Miss Vi Vassity, to whom I also turned, I saw her common, clever, vivacious face lighted up with a variety of expressions: amusement, curiosity, irony. She knew, as well as I did, what was happening. She was keener than I to see what would happen next.
In far less time than it takes to tell all this Miss Million had rattled on: "Oh, yes; Mr. Burke was with uncle in Chicago pretty near every day all the last year of his life, wasn't you, Mr. Burke? Shows how well he used to know him, doesn't it? And then when he heard my name at the Hotel Sizzle!
"Soon as he heard that I was related to Mr. Samuel Million, his old friend, he came round and chummed up at once. It is funny, isn't it," concluded Miss Million, "the queer way you get to know people that you've never dreamt about?"
"Yes, it's real funny, I guess, that I haven't happened to have gotten to know Mr. Burke while he was on the other side," broke in the voice of the American, speaking quietly but very distinctly as it "gave away" the pretensions of the Honourable Jim in two simple sentences.
"I guess there wasn't a day in the last two years that I wasn't visiting the old man. And I never heard anything about a sprained ankle, nor yet about his having had any Mr. Burke to come around and see him."