"I suppose you like being at Duddon?" he asked her abruptly, without answering her question.
She clasped her hands fervently.
"It's like heaven! They're so good to us."
"No doubt!"—the tone was sarcastic. "Well, let them provide for you. Who gave you those clothes? Lady Tatham?"
She nodded. Her lip trembled. Her startled eyes looked at him piteously.
"You've been living at Lucca?"
"Near Lucca—on the mountains."
"H'm. Is that all true—about your grandfather?"
"That he's ill? Of course, it's true!" she said indignantly. "We don't tell lies. He's had a stroke—he's dying. And we could hardly give him any food he could eat. You see—"
She edged a little closer, and began a voluble, confidential account of their life in the mountains. Her voice was thin and childish, but sweet; and every now and then she gave a half-frightened, half-excited laugh. Melrose watched her frowning; but he did not stop her. Her bright eyes and brows, with their touches of velvet black, the quick movement of her pink lips, the rose-leaf delicacy of her colour, seemed to hold him. Among the pretty things with which the room was crowded she was the prettiest; and he probably was conscious of it. Propped up against the French bureau stood a Watteau drawing in red chalk—a sanguine—he had bought in Paris on a recent visit. The eyes of the old connoisseur went from the living face to the drawing, comparing them.