He halted, with anxious appeal in his eyes, and his hands outspread to beseech enlightenment from her. She nodded to show that she understood. “In a minute or two, when I have got it into shape in my mind,” she said soothingly. “But meantime go on. I want you to talk. What have you done during the week?”
Christian threw his hands outward.
“Done?” he asked plaintively. “Murdered time some way or the other. I was free to move an hour after I had read the letter. The money was more than I had ever had before. It was intolerable to me—the thought of not being in motion. In the ‘Indicateur’ I got the times of trains, and I formed my plan. Avignon I had never seen, and then Le Puy—there was a wonderful description of it in a magazine I had read—and then to Paris, and next to Rouen. It was at Rouen that I slept last night. It was my first night’s good sleep—I had tired myself out so completely. Always walking with the map in my mind, going from one church to another, talking to the Suisse, bending back my head to examine capitals and arches, forcing myself to take an interest in what I saw every little minute—so I have come somehow through the week. But now here is rich England within plain sight, and here are you, my new friend—and all my life I have been so poor and without friends!”
He tightened his hand upon the rail, and abruptly turned his face away. She saw the shine of tears in his eyes.
“Come and sit down again,” she said, with a sisterly hand on his arm. “I know how to tell it to you now.”
“But you truly know nothing about the Towers—or Torrs—your father’s family?” she continued, when they were once again seated. “It sounds incredible! I can hardly realize how you could have lived all these years and not—but how old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“—And not got some inkling of who—of who your father was?”
“My mother never told me. Perhaps she did not know altogether, herself. I cannot say as to that. And if Salvator knew—that I cannot tell, either. He is a curious man, my brother Salvator. He talks so you would think you saw him inside out—but he keeps many things to himself none the less.”
“Yes—that brother of yours,” she said abstractedly. “I have been thinking about him. But it can’t be that he has any importance in the game, else the Jews would have sent for him instead of you. They waste no time,—they make no errors.”