Again Amory was slightly puzzled; and at Dorothy’s questions she had, moreover, a sudden little hesitation. Was it after all necessary that Dorothy should know everything? Would it not be sufficient, without going into details, to let Dorothy suppose she had changed her mind? It came to the same thing in the end.... Besides, Edgar Strong had not refused her that night. He had not even known of her presence in the office. Of the rest she would make a clean breast, but it was no good bothering Dorothy with that other.... She was still plunged into a sort of stupor, but these reflections stirred ever so slightly under the surface of it....
Then what “what we’ve heard to-day” struck her. She repeated the words.
“What we’ve heard to-day?”
“Oh, if you haven’t heard.... I only mean about the murder of my uncle,” said Dorothy coldly.
This was far more than Amory could take in. She reflected for a moment. Then, “What do you say, Dorothy?” she asked slowly.
“At least he wasn’t my uncle really. I liked him better than any of my uncles.”
“Do you mean Sir Benjamin Collins?”
It was as if Amory had not imagined that Sir Benjamin could by any possibility have been anybody’s uncle.
“I called him uncle,” said Dorothy, in a voice that she tried to keep steady. “Before I could say the word—I called him——.” But she decided not to risk the baby-word she had used—“Unnoo”——