Margaret laid one hand on the arm of her chair and leaned forward a little, so as to see the child better.
'Really!' she exclaimed, rather deliberately, as if she had chosen that particular word out of a number that suggested themselves. 'Really!' she repeated, still more slowly, and then leaned back again and looked at the grey waves.
She remembered the notice of Miss Bamberger's death. It had described the deceased as the only child of Hannah Moon by her former marriage with Isidore Bamberger. But Hannah Moon, as Margaret happened to know, was now the widow of Senator Alvah Moon. Therefore the little deaf child was the half-sister of the girl who had died at the theatre in Margaret's arms and had been christened by the same name. Therefore, also, she was related to Margaret, whose mother had been the California magnate's cousin.
'How small the world is!' Margaret said in a low voice as she looked at the grey waves.
She wondered whether little Ida had ever heard of her half-sister, and what Miss More knew about it all.
'How old is Mrs. Moon?' she asked.
'I fancy she must be forty, or near that. I know that she was nearly thirty years younger than the Senator, but I never saw her.'
'You never saw her?' Margaret was surprised.
'No,' Miss More answered. 'She is insane, you know. She went quite mad soon after the little girl was born. It was very painful for the Senator. Her delusion was that he was her divorced husband, Mr. Bamberger, and when the child came into the world she insisted that it should be called Ida, and that she had no other. Mr. Bamberger's daughter was Ida, you know. It was very strange. Mrs. Moon was convinced that she was forced to live her life over again, year by year, as an expiation for something she had done. The doctors say it is a hopeless case. I really think it shortened the Senator's life.'
Margaret did not think that the world had any cause to complain of
Mrs. Moon on that account.