“This is very extraordinary!” he said. “Have you ever heard the name before?”
Her head moved quickly several times in tiny affirmative nods, as if she could not trust herself to speak, or even to look at him. She was biting her lower lip.
“Did you ever know anybody of that name?” he asked.
The girl answered by a negative sign; and then at last she spoke, jerkily, as if forcing herself against some doubt or fear. She had heard of that very man, she told Heyst.
“Impossible!” he said positively. “You are mistaken. You couldn't have heard of him, it's—”
He stopped short, with the thought that to talk like this was perfectly useless; that one doesn't argue against thin air.
“But I did hear of him; only I didn't know then, I couldn't guess, that it was your partner they were talking about.”
“Talking about my partner?” repeated Heyst slowly.
“No.” Her mind seemed almost as bewildered, as full of incredulity, as his. “No. They were talking of you really; only I didn't know it.”
“Who were they?” Heyst raised his voice. “Who was talking of me? Talking where?”