"Oh, Lord!" murmured Simon Jefferson, sinking back into the hall chair.
"Father and mother married secretly," Fran said, solely addressing Mrs. Gregory, but occasionally sending a furtive glance at her husband. "He was a college-student, boarding with his cousin, who was one of the professors. Mother was an orphan and lived with her half- uncle,—a mighty crusty old man, Uncle Ephraim was, who didn't have one bit of use for people getting married in secret. Father and mother agreed not to mention their marriage till after his graduation; then he'd go to his father and make everything easy, and come for mother. So he went and told him—father's father was a millionaire on Wall Street. Mother's uncle was pretty well fixed, too, but he didn't enjoy anything except religion. When he wasn't at church—he went 'most all the time—he was reading about it. Mother said he was most religious in Hebrew, but he enjoyed his Greek verbs awfully."
Grace Noir asked remotely, "Did you say that your parents eloped?"
"They didn't run far," Fran explained; "they were married in the county, not far from Springfield—"
"I thought you said," Grace interrupted, "that they were in New York."
"Did you?" said Fran politely. "So father graduated, and went away to tell his father all about being married to Josephine Derry. I don't know what happened then, as he didn't come back to tell. My mother waited and waited—and I was born—and then Uncle Ephraim drove mother out of his house with her tiny baby—that's me—and I grew to be—as old as you see me now. We were always hunting father. We went all over the United States, first and last—it looked like the son of a millionaire ought to be easy to find. But he kept himself close, and there was never a clue. Then mother died. Sometimes she used to tell me that she believed him dead, that if he'd been alive he'd have come for her, because she loved him with all her soul, and wrecked her whole life because of him. She was happiest when she thought he was dead, so I wouldn't say anything, but I was sure he was alive, all right, as big and strong as you please. Oh, I know his kind. I've had lots of experience."
"So I'd suppose," said Grace Noir quietly. "May I ask—if you don't mind—if this traveling about the United States didn't take a great deal of money?"
"Oh, we had all the money we wanted," Fran returned easily.
"Indeed? And did you become reconciled to your mother's uncle?"
"Yes—after he was dead. He didn't leave a will, and there wasn't anybody else, and as mother had just been taken from me, the money just naturally came in my hands. But I didn't need it, particularly."