"I made one acquaintance," he replied to Madame Carmaux, who was by far the most pertinacious in her inquiries, "the hearing about whom may interest you considerably. A gentleman who knew you long ago."
"Indeed!" she said, "and who might that be?"
She asked the question lightly, almost indifferently, yet--unless the flicker of the lamp in the middle of the table was playing tricks with his vision--there came suddenly a look of nervousness, of apprehension, upon her face. A look controlled yet not altogether to be subdued.
"It was Monsieur Lemaire," he replied, "the professor of modern languages at the Victoria College. He said he knew you very well once, before your marriage."
"Yes," she replied, "he did," and now he saw that, whatever nervousness she might be experiencing, she was exerting a strong power of suppression of any visible outward sign of her feelings. "Monsieur Lemaire was very good to me. He enabled me to find employment as a teacher in various houses. What did he tell you besides?"
"He mentioned the sad ending to your marriage. Also the death of your little---- Excuse me," he broke off, "but you have upset your glass. Allow me," and from where he sat he bent forward, and with his napkin sopped up the spilt water which had been in that glass.
"It was very clumsy," she muttered. "My loose sleeves are always knocking things over. Thank you. But what was it you said he mentioned? The death of my----"
"Little daughter," Julian replied softly, feeling sorry--and indeed, annoyed with himself--at what he now considered a lack of delicacy and consideration. A lack of feeling, because he thought it very possible that, even after a long lapse of time, this poor widowed woman might still lament bitterly the death of her little child.
"Ah! yes," she said, though why now her face should brighten considerably he did not understand. "Ah! yes. Poor little thing, it did not live long, only a very little while. Poor little baby!"
Looking still under the lamp and feeling still a little disconcerted at the reflection that he had quite unintentionally recalled unhappy recollections to Madame Carmaux, he saw that Sebastian was also regarding her with a strange, almost bewildered look in his eyes. What that look meant, Julian was not sufficiently a judge of expression to fathom; yet, had he been compelled there and then to describe what feeling that glance most suggested to him, he would probably have termed it one of surprise.