Salvatore made a tragic gesture and covered his eyes with his hand. The ludicrous creature made a farce of all he touched.
“They are graven on my heart,” he said. “Deep and bitterly are they graven there. The first that I received, dated on the seventeenth of March, told me of the birth of her twins, one named Raymond and yourself. The second, dated March the thirty-first, announced her marriage which had taken place that day with your father ...” and he ground his teeth slightly.
Colin leaned forward to him.
“Uncle Salvatore you are a marvellous actor!” he said. “Why did you never go on the stage? I can tell you why. You have no memory at all.”
Salvatore gave him a hunted kind of look. Was not his very existence (and that of Vittoria and Cecilia) dependent on the accuracy of this recollection?... Was Colin putting him to some sort of test to see if he would stick to his impression of those letters.
“Dear fellow, those letters and those dates are engraved, as I have previously assured you, on my heart. Alas! that it should be so....”
A sudden light dawned on him.
“You have come to tell me that I am wrong,” he said. “Is it indeed true that my memory is at fault?”
“Absolutely with regard to the date of one of those letters,” said Colin. “The date on that which announced my mother’s marriage was surely March the first, Uncle Salvatore. You are right about the date of the other.”
Colin suddenly broke into a shout of laughter. His uncle’s puckered brow and his effort to recollect what he knew and what he had been told were marvellous to behold. Presently he recovered himself.