A little while afterwards the major-domo appeared and led him into a luxuriously-furnished room. Donna Elvira was reclining in a chair; she inclined her head slightly and motioned him to be seated opposite her. At his entrance she had shot one swift glance at him, her brows had drawn together, and her lips had quivered; but now she sat calmly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Derrick was the first to speak.
"I want to thank you, señora, for your great kindness to me," he said, with all a man's awkwardness. "It is all the greater because I am a stranger, a man you know nothing about——"
He paused at this, and his face grew red, for the story of the forged cheque flashed across his mind.
She raised her eyes and looked at him.
"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice. "One in my position learns to judge men and women by their faces, their voices. Besides, I have told you that I have been in England, and I know when one is a gentleman. But, if you wish, if you think you would like me to know more, you may tell me—just what you please." There was a slight pause. "For instance, your father—was he an engineer, like yourself?"
Derrick leant back and crossed his legs, and looked, not at the pale face before him, but at the floor, and his brows were knit.
"It will sound strange to you, señora," he said, slowly, "but I don't know what my father was—not even what kind of a man he was. I never saw him—to remember him."
"He died—when you were young?" asked Donna Elvira.
"Yes," assented Derrick, "and my mother, too. They must have been fairly well off—not poor, I mean—for they left me, or, rather, the people in whose charge they placed me, sufficient money to bring me up and educate me, and enable me to gain a profession."
A shaded lamp stood on a table at the side of Donna Elvira's chair. As if she found the light oppressive, she moved the lamp farther back, so that her face was completely in the shade.