“Schuyler, a man like you shouldn’t trifle with edged tools. You have no gift for anything but—lawing. It wouldn’t be any laughing matter if you should develop blood-poison—”
“It certainly would not, and as I like to laugh I shan’t do it. Now, what is this marvellous thing you’ve discovered, please? I’m getting tired of fog, no newspapers, and chess with a stranger; so welcome even a woman’s gossip with delight!”
She paid no heed to his chaffing but began:
“I believe I know who that Dorothy’s parents were. I’m as positive as if I’d been told; and I’m perfectly amazed at Mrs. Betty Calvert. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Apparently—to you. Not yet to me. I’ve understood that two and two makes four; but how your ‘belief’ and poor old Betty Calvert make sensible connection I fail to comprehend. I await instruction.”
“Stop jesting and you shall have it. Then tell me if I haven’t given you better food for thought than you’d find in to-day’s paper—if you could get it here at sea.”
Thereupon, hitching her chair a little nearer to her brother’s and glancing about to see no stranger overheard, the lady began a low toned conversation with him. This proved, as she had foretold, far more entertaining than the day’s news; and when it was over, when there was nothing more to be said, he rose, pulled his traveling cap over his eyes, thrust his hands into his capacious pockets and walked away “to think it over.” Adding, as he left:
“Well, if you’re right everything is wrong. And if you’re wrong everything’s right.”
Over which eminent legal opinion Mrs. Hungerford smiled, reflecting:
“He’s convinced. There’s nobody I know so well versed in Maryland genealogy as Schuyler Breckenridge. It’s been his pastime so long he’ll be keen on this scent till he proves it false or true. And if it is true—what a shame, what a shame! That horrid, lonely old woman to take such an outrageous course. Poor, dear, sweet little Dorothy!”