“She was deadly afraid of her brother. She made up her mind that he would be the death of her baby too. So she ran away from Liverpool and hid in a little village in North Wales, Llanfairfechan, and nobody knew where she had gone. She had a little money of her own, and her husband had been well insured. She had just enough, and she lived quite alone in a cottage off the road to the mountains, and there she died. My father says her son did rather well. He got scholarships to Oxford, and my father fancies he went into the Civil Service, but he lost sight of him after the mother died.”
“I’m infinitely obliged to you. Miss Amber,” said Reggie, and rang for tea.
“Oh, no, don’t! I always thought that poor woman’s story was too miserably sad. I don’t know why you wanted it—no, no, I’m not asking—but if it could set anything right, or do anybody any good, it seems somehow to make it better. It wouldn’t be so uselessly cruel.”
“Over the past the gods themselves have no power,” Reggie said. “We can’t help her, poor soul. I dare say it’s something to her to know that her son is safe and making good—in spite of all the devilry.”
“Something to her—of course it is!” said Miss Amber, and looked divine.
“There’s that,” said Reggie, watching her.
“You won’t mind my saying professionally that you have been very useful. Miss Amber,” said Lomas. “You have cleared up what was a very tiresome mystery. I was being bothered. That’s a serious disturbance of the machinery of Empire.” He succeeded, as he desired, in setting the conversation to a lighter tune. He made Miss Amber’s eyes again merry. He did not prevent Reggie from looking at her. “You must promise me another opportunity to thank you,” he said, as she was going.
“Dear me, I thought you had been doing nothing else,” said she demurely, and looked at the table and made a face. “Oh, Mr. Fortune, what, what a tea! I leave all my reputation behind me. Men hate to see women eat, don’t they? But do men always make teas like this?”
“I’ve a simple mind. I live the simple life.”
She looked at him fairly. “You said simple. Do you know how I feel? I feel as if I hadn’t a secret left all my own,” and she swept away. He was a long time gone letting her out.