His strong, handsome hand dropped on the piano’s edge, gripped it; and under his pale skin the quick blood surged to his temples.
“What was your—your mother’s name, Miss Soane?”
“She was Eileen Fane.”
The throbbing seconds passed and still they looked into each other’s eyes in silence. And at last:
“So you did know my mother,” she said under her breath; and the hushed finality of her words set his strong hand trembling.
“Eileen’s little daughter,” he repeated. “Eileen Fane’s child.... And grown to womanhood.... Yes, I knew your mother—many years ago.... When I enlisted and went abroad.... Was it Sir Terence Soane who married your mother?”
She shook her head. He stared at her, striving to concentrate, to think. “There were other Soanes,” he muttered, “the Ellet Water folk—no?——But 325 there were many Soanes among the landed gentry in the East and North.... I cannot seem to recollect—the sudden shock—hearing a song unexpectedly——”
His white forehead had grown damp under the curly hair now clinging to it. He passed his handkerchief over his brow in a confused way, then leaned heavily on the piano with both hands grasping it. For the ghost of his youth was interfering, disputing his control over his own mind, filling his ear with forgotten words, taking possession of his memory and tormenting it with the distant echoes of a voice long dead.
Through the increasing chaos in his brain his strained gaze sought to fix itself on this living, breathing face before him—the child of Eileen Fane.
He made the effort: