"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it something else that glues him there—with the Yulan in the North River?"
Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.
"If I thought," muttered the old lady—"if I imagined for one moment that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself—I'd take the next train and tell that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"
Quarren was silent.
"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed—have you ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa Leeds?—any tacit understanding—any interest on her part in him?... Why don't you answer me?"
"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."
"Am I to take that impudence literally?"
"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."
"Why can't you speak of Langly?"