“Senator Brander!” echoed Lester, the familiar name of the dead but still famous statesman ringing with shocking and unexpected force in his ears. “How did you come to know him?”
“We used to do his washing for him,” she rejoined simply—“my mother and I.”
Lester paused, the baldness of the statements issuing from her sobering even his rancorous mood. “Senator Brander’s child,” he thought to himself. So that great representative of the interests of the common people was the undoer of her—a self-confessed washerwoman’s daughter. A fine tragedy of low life all this was.
“How long ago was this?” he demanded, his face the picture of a darkling mood.
“It’s been nearly six years now,” she returned.
He calculated the time that had elapsed since he had known her, and then continued:
“How old is the child?”
“She’s a little over five.”
Lester moved a little. The need for serious thought made his tone more peremptory but less bitter.
“Where have you been keeping her all this time?”