"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he asked, agreeably.
She shook her head, not from any knowledge of his meaning, but to signify her disinclination for speech.
"Parlez-vous français?" he went on, patiently.
Her head again negatived this question, and he inquired in Spanish if she knew that tongue.
The shaking of the head became mechanical, and as the inspector knew seventeen languages, he addressed her successively in each one of them.
After she had shaken her head at them all, he surveyed her a few seconds in meditative silence. Then he began to talk on his fingers. She was probably deaf and dumb.
'Tilda Jane joyfully uncurled her hands from the bundle on her lap. This was a safe medium of conversation, for talking on the fingers had been a favourite amusement of the orphans during silence hours; and she would not be tempted to say too much, and betray the fact that she was a runaway. Accordingly, she spelled out the information, "I am an orphan."
"Where do you come from?" he asked her.
"A long ways off," her finger tips informed him.