"That night you protested about the bomb," I asked, "did you hear me call?"
Could it have been that some of the animation left her face as she answered slowly:
"Oh, was it you? I heard someone call to a person named Sylvia."
"But—isn't that your name?"
"Oh," she laughed, "I haven't nearly so pretty a name as that!"
I was crazy to be the judge, but asked, instead:
"Did your—father ever explain why he was afraid of detectives?"
"Nothing more than that he was fearfully hunted and persecuted. When I was almost a baby he had to run away because of a political plot. He escaped with me after," her voice lowered, "my mother had been killed by the revolutionists, and we've been hiding here ever since, awaiting the message that will bring him back to be President again; although while the other party is in power its agents would arrest him—and it's been in power for years. Do you know," she looked at me frankly, "I've never forgiven him for letting them kill my mother! Throughout all of my childhood I used to hold indignation meetings with myself and consign him to every imaginable punishment—both for that, and running away without avenging her."
She was quiet then. This news of the South American republic showed what an accomplished liar old Efaw Kotee could be. Very plausible, indeed, and an adequate excuse for keeping her in a potential prison.
"I fear that I've been terribly outspoken," she said at last, with a wistful expression that held both laughter and apology.