"No, ma'am?" Harry was first interrogative then acquiescent. "No, ma'am.
I wonder if you could give me the Colonel's direction."
"I, sir? You are pleased to amuse yourself."
"I vow, ma'am, I was never less amused."
"Colonel Boyce was pleased to leave me five years ago. I have not forgotten it, if you have."
"Faith, this is very distressing," Harry protested in bewilderment. "But you do me injustice, ma'am. I have forgotten nothing about my father. For I never knew anything."
"As you please, sir," the lady drawled. "I was talking, by your leave, to
Mrs. Boyce."
"Oh, ma'am, a hundred pardons," Harry took himself off in a hurry. His chief emotion over the lady seems to have been satisfaction that she wanted nothing to do with him. As for her story of being his father's deserted wife, he had long supposed his father capable of anything. As for the lady herself, he wrote her down a tiresome busybody and perhaps he was not far wrong.
Alison too was much of the same opinion, but it was unfortunately hampered by a natural curiosity to hear what the lady could tell about the mystery of Harry and his father. "You had something to say to me, ma'am?"
"I count it my duty, ma'am, to give you warning of Colonel Boyce."
Alison stood up. "Duty? I know nothing of your duty, ma'am. But I think it is mine not to listen to you."