“Mother, do you like Dulcie Soane?”
“I scarcely know her yet.... She’s very sweet—very young——”
“Do you like her?”
“Why—yes——” She looked intently at her tall, unsmiling son. “But I don’t even know who she is, Garry.”
Her son bent down beside her and put one arm around her shoulder. She sat quite motionless with the bottle of Grover’s Specific in one rubber-gloved hand, the medicine dropper poised in the other.
He said:
“Dulcie’s name is Fane, not Soane. Her grandfather 409 was Sir Barry Fane, of Fane Court—an Irishman. His daughter, Eileen, was Dulcie’s mother.... Her father—is dead—I believe.”
“But—this explains nothing, Garry.”
“Is it not explanation enough, mother?”
“Is it enough for you, my son?”