She sat down, her feet apart, peasant fashion, her hands in her lap.
"If I had not lost the twenty francs he would not have died," she said dejectedly.
"He would have died if you had brought him here in a carriage. He had aneurism of the heart, the doctor says. He might have died any moment the last ten years. How old was he?"
"Seventy, eighty, ninety—how should I know?"
"But he was your grandfather."
"Ah, no, indeed, Monsieur," she replied in a more animated manner. "He was not a relative. My mother was poor and she sold me to him three years ago."
"Why that is like me, Master!" I cried, vastly interested.
"My son," said he in English, "that is one of the things that must be forgotten. And then, Mademoiselle?" he asked in French.
"Then he taught me to play the zither and to dance. I am sorry he is dead. Dame, oui, par exemple! But I do not weep for him as for a grandfather. Oh, no!"
"And your mother?"