“Your father was in business there?”
“He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There’s no secret about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to France—skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That’s how he made his money.”
“You don’t know how long he’d been there when you were born?”
“No.”
“Was he married when he went out there?”
“No, he wasn’t. We do know that. He’s told us the circumstances of his marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer arrived.”
“And your mother is dead?”
“My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and Jessie six, then.”
“And you came to England—how long after that?”
“Two years.”