“Can you sit down by me?” she said. “I want to talk to you about Lucien Latimer.”
“What is there in the atmosphere which suggests Latimer?” he inquired. “We have been talking about him at the other side of the room. Do you know him?”
“I never saw him,” she replied, “but I knew her.”
“Her!” he repeated.
“The little sister.” She leaned forward a little. “What were the details of her death?” she asked. “I want to know—I want to know.”
Somehow the words sounded nervously eager.
“I did not ask him,” he answered; “I thought he preferred to be silent. He is a silent man.”
She sat upright again, and for a moment seemed to forget herself. She said something two or three times softly to herself. Baird thought it was “Poor child! Poor child!”
“She was young to die,” he said, in a low voice. “Poor child, indeed.”
Miss Amory came back to him, as it were.