"Oh, I have the advantage of everybody else! I have two fathers."
He could do no more than repeat after her: "Two fathers!"
"Yes; Uel the merchant is one of them, and the Prince of India is the other. I suppose you mean the Prince, since you know him. He accompanied me to the landing this morning, and seated me in the boat. He was then well."
There was no concealment here. Yet Sergius saw the disclosure was not complete. He was tempted to go on.
"Two fathers! How can such thing be?"
She met the question with a laugh. "Oh! If it depended on which of them is the kinder to me, I could not tell you the real father."
Sergius stood looking at her, much as to say: "That is no answer; you are playing with me."
"See how we are falling behind," she then said. "Come, let us go on. I can talk while walking."
They set forward briskly, but it was noticeable that he moved nearer her, stooping from his great height to hear further.
"This is the way of it," she continued of her own prompting. "Some years ago, my father, Uel, the merchant, received a letter from an old friend of his father's, telling him that he was about to return to Constantinople after a long absence in the East somewhere, and asking if he, Uel, would assist the servant who was bearer of the note in buying and furnishing a house. Uel did so, and when the stranger arrived, his home was ready for him. I was then a little girl, and went one day to see the Prince of India, his residence being opposite Uel's on the other side of the street. He was studying some big books, but quit them, and picked me up, and asked me who I was? I told him Uel was my father. What was my name? Lael, I said. How old was I? And when I answered that also, he kissed me, and cried, and, to my wonder, declared how he had once a child named Lael; she looked like me, and was just my age when she died"—