There was decided emphasis in his interrogations.
“I’m glad your glasses are full, or I should say—”
There was, I think, a little heat for a moment on both sides.
“The wires are evidently crossed somewhere,” he said calmly. “My Olivia Armstrong is a droll child from Cincinnati, whose escapades caused her to be sent home for discipline to-day. She’s a little mite who just about comes to the lapel of your coat, her eyes are as black as midnight—”
“Then she didn’t talk to Pickering and his friends at the station this morning—the prettiest girl in the world—gray hat, gray coat, blue eyes? You can have your Olivia; but who, will you tell me, is mine?”
I pounded with my clenched hand on the table until the candles rattled and sputtered.
Stoddard stared at me for a moment as though he thought I had lost my wits. Then he lay back in his chair and roared. I rose, bending across the table toward him in my eagerness. A suspicion had leaped into my mind, and my heart was pounding as it roused a thousand questions.
“The blue-eyed young woman in gray? Bless your heart, man, Olivia is a child; I talked to her myself on the platform. You were talking to Miss Devereux. She isn’t Olivia, she’s Marian!”
“Then, who is Marian Devereux—where does she live—what is she doing here—?”
“Well,” he laughed, “to answer your questions in order, she’s a young woman; her home is New York; she has no near kinfolk except Sister Theresa, so she spends some of her time here.”