“Umph.”
Again a silence. We passed a trio of Jewish girls in long coats who looked me over solemnly with large languorous eyes.
“He was a horrible-looking bounder,” he said.
“He was what he looked,” I answered.
“Then how,” he exclaimed, unable to restrain the question, “could he have been a friend of hers?”
He was embarrassed and ashamed, and to hide it cut vigorously at the dead weeds with his cane. Through this childish ruse his desire to know was as plain as if he had expressed it in words of one syllable.
“He was her sponsor. She was a sort of speculation of his; he was training her for the operatic stage. I’ve told you all this before.”
“Yes, I know, but—well, it’s a reasonable explanation.”
He had been speaking with his face turned from me, his eyes following the slashings of the cane. Now he lifted his head and looked across to the apartment-houses. The movement, the brightened expression, the tone of his voice, told of a lifted weight. He had heard it all before, but then he hadn’t cared. Now, caring, he wanted to hear it again, to be assured, to have all uncertainty appeased.
“It was a business arrangement,” he said. “Yes, I remember, you told me some time ago.”