Ommony stared at the fire. “Thank goodness, we’ll be dead then, with something different to fret about,” he grumbled, angry with the destiny that he felt compelled him to probe a gentlewoman’s secrets. She noticed the tone of his voice—could not very well ignore it.
“What is troubling you, Cottswold? I supposed you were the most contented man on earth. Have you lost your interest in your forest?”
“I’ve resigned from the forestry.” He stared at her, and broke the ice suddenly, doing the very thing he was determined not to, blurting a blunt question without tact or even a preliminary warning. “Who is this girl Elsa, who is never at the mission when I’m here, but who has been to Lhassa, talks English and Tibetan, and can draw like Michael Angelo?”
He jerked his jaw forward to conceal the contempt that he felt for himself for having blundered in so clumsily, all the while watching her face but detecting no nervousness. To his surprise and relief she laughed and leaned her head against the high chair-back, looking at him humorously from under lowered eyelids, as she might have listened to a lame excuse from some one in the school.
“Poor Cottswold! How you must have felt uncomfortable!—you’re so faithful to your friends. No, Elsa is not my daughter. I have never had that experience. If she were my daughter I know quite well I would have said so long ago. I can imagine myself being proud of her, even—even in those circumstances.”
“I confess I’m mightily relieved,” said Ommony, grinning uncomfortably. “Not, of course, that I’d have—”
“No, I know you wouldn’t,” she interrupted. “You are the last person on earth I would hide that kind of secret from.”
“Why any kind of secret, Hannah? Am I not to be trusted?”
“Not in this instance. You’re the one man who couldn’t be told.” Then, after a dramatic pause: “Elsa is your niece.”
“Niece?” he said, and shut his teeth with a snap. That one word solved the whole long riddle.