"A little—yes."
"You knew him in India, did not you?" say I, unable to resist the temptation of seizing this opportunity to gratify my curiosity, drawing my chair a little nearer hers, and speaking with an eagerness which I, in vain, try to stifle.
"Yes," smiling sweetly, "in India."
"He was there a long time," continue I, communicatively.
"Yes."
(Well, she is baffling! when she does not say "yes" affirmatively, she says it interrogatively.)
"All the same he did not like it," I go on, with amicable volubility; "but I dare say you know that. They say—" (reddening as I feel, perceptibly, and nervously twisting my pocket-handkerchief round my fingers)—"that people are so sociable in India: now, I dare say you saw a good deal of him."
"Yes; we met several times."
She is smiling again. There is not a shade of hesitation or unreadiness in her low voice, nor does the faintest tinge of color stain the fine pallor of her cheeks.
(It must have been a lie!)