“It must have been about the time you—you were married, Mrs. Marten.”
She tapped a satin-shod foot emphatically on the boarded floor. “Why are you calling me ‘Mrs. Marten’?” she demanded.
“Well——”
“Don’t do it again. I am ‘Nancy’ to you, Derry. I refuse to part with the privileges of friendship in that casual way. But I want to understand things more closely. What caused the stones to fall?”
“I don’t mind telling,” he said, “though a good many people have asked me the history of El Preço, and I have refused hitherto to gratify their curiosity——”
“El Preço—doesn’t that mean ‘the price’?”
“Yes.”
“What an extraordinary name! The price of what?”
“Of my broken leg. There, you see! King Charles’s head once more.”
She paused, ever so briefly, before resuming her questioning. “Now, why did the stones fall?”