"All alone?" she queried quickly.
He nodded again.
"With my servant," he said. He repeated with a certain doggedness: "I wanted to be alone."
There was a pause. The girl was standing in the doorway. Her dog was basking in the sunshine not a yard away. She looked at the cripple with thoughtful eyes.
"I live alone, too," she said. "That is—Cæsar and I."
That successfully aroused Durant's curiosity.
"You!" he said incredulously.
She put up her hand with a quick movement and pushed the short curls back from her forehead.
"I am used to it," she said, with an odd womanly dignity. "I have been practically alone all my life."
Durant looked at her closely. She spoke in a very low voice, but there were rich notes in it that caught his attention.