“Why, Miss Lily Deacon. She lives up there,” Jane jerked her head casually in the direction, “in the first house on the left hand side just as you turn into Sheridan Lane. The one with iron deers on each side of the gate. She’s very pretty. Mrs. Deacon is very fat, but she certainly is what you’d called impressive looking, and she does a lot of good. I mean she’s on committees and things, and always president.”
“Um,” said Mr. Sheridan. Then, boring the end of his cane through a dead leaf, he asked carelessly,
“But when did Miss Lily see me? I’ve never been here before.”
“Yesterday morning she said. She said she couldn’t tell exactly what you were like, because she only saw you in her handmirror while she was brushing her hair, but I think she got a pretty good idea.”
Poor Miss Lily. If she had ever dreamed that Jane would be placidly repeating her indiscreet little confidences, she would have died of mortification. But Jane, who, in her own peculiar way, was immeasurably more astute than Miss Lily, saw very plainly that Mr. Sheridan was trying to suppress a complacent smile.
“And how did she know who I was?”
“Why, in the first place, she’d heard that one of the family was going to live in this house again, and then she saw you drive in here, so she just used her common sense, I suppose.”
“Ah—of course.”
After a moment, he said, with the most engaging friendliness,
“I think you might tell me your name.”