Doris looked at him, and shook her head.
“No,” she replied. She did not like to ask his name.
“Ah, perhaps that is as well,” he said, with a faintly cynical smile; “I mean that I am not worth knowing. And are you living here, Miss Marlowe? Your mother must be a very happy woman, having so sweet a daughter,” and he drooped his head toward her, with the old, graceful salute.
A deep red stained Doris’ pale face.
“My mother is dead,” she said.
He put up his white hand, with a pleading gesture.
“Forgive me, my dear! Your father——”
“I have no father,” said Doris, almost inaudibly, and with a strange pang shooting through her heart. “There was one who was father and mother to me, but—he is dead, too,” and her voice quivered.
“You are young to have seen so much trouble,” he said, pityingly. “But you are living here with some relative, is it not so?”
Doris shook her head.