“Indeed I had! I had nothing.”
“You had a father.”
“Of a kind. But I quarrelled with him. You heard that, of course.”
He had heard of it, of course, but her affairs had made trivial dints upon his consciousness.
“Why did you quarrel with him?” he asked.
Her face became a crimson mask. She lowered her head.
“Oh—I beg your pardon,” he stammered in distress. “Of course I had no right to ask.”
She was silent, her fingers nervously picking out letters on the type-writer. Then her eyes met his unflinchingly again.
“No, in a way you have a right to ask,” she said, uneasily. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you—it’s so long ago. You know I became the Deacon’s book-keeper?”
He nodded, wondering.