“My name is Ross Davidge. I met you at your father’s house in London.”
This seemed to agitate her peculiarly. She trembled and gasped:
“You don’t mean it. I–– Oh yes, of course I remember––”
“Please don’t lie about it,” he pleaded, bluntly, “for of course you don’t.”
She laughed, but very nervously.
“Well, we did give very large dinners.”
“It was a very large one the night I was there. I was a mile down the street from you, and I said nothing immortal. I was only a business acquaintance of Sir Joseph’s, anyway. It was about ships, of course.”
He saw that her mind was far away and under strange excitation. But she murmured, distantly:
“Oh, so you are––interested in ships?”
“I make ’em for a living.”