“You wouldn’t wish me to live with a bad man?” The dark eyes opened with childlike appeal.
“No; but you needn’t have divorced him.”
“If I didn’t, he would always be pestering me.”
“You talk like a Southerner.”
“Yes. Didn’t Grandmother tell you her son went South and married there?”
“Perhaps. I don’t remember. How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight. You’re looking at my hair. In a single night, Aunt Susanna—Oh, excuse me,” with apparently sudden shyness, “Grandmother always spoke of you to us all as our Aunt Susanna. We were taught to love your picture.”
Miss Frink felt slightly pitiful toward that “single night” statement and she kept the thought of her Alice in mind.
“I don’t like harrowing details,” she said curtly, “so I won’t ask for them.”
“Thank you so much”—with a pretty gesture of outgoing hands—“I do so loathe going over it.”