Then she was gone—out of his shop—out of his life. The door clicked. With a sigh he turned and walked brokenly back toward the glass partition that enclosed the yellowed accounts of many years as well as the mellowed, wrinkled Miss McCracken.
Merlin regarded her parched, cobwebbed face with an odd sort of pity. She, at any rate, had had less from life than he. No rebellious, romantic spirit popping out unbidden had, in its memorable moments, given her life a zest and a glory.
Then Miss McCracken looked up and spoke to him:
“Still a spunky old piece, isn’t she?”
Merlin started.
“Who?”
“Old Alicia Dare. Mrs. Thomas Allerdyce she is now, of course; has been, these thirty years.”
“What? I don’t understand you.” Merlin sat down suddenly in his swivel chair; his eyes were wide.
“Why, surely, Mr. Grainger, you can’t tell me that you’ve forgotten her, when for ten years she was the most notorious character in New York. Why, one time when she was the correspondent in the Throckmorton divorce case she attracted so much attention on Fifth Avenue that there was a traffic tie-up. Didn’t you read about it in the papers.”
“I never used to read the papers.” His ancient brain was whirring.