“He was a man,” she said, “of sensitive honour.”
Captain Baltazar threw away the flaming match wherewith he was about to light a cigarette.
“That licks me,” said he.
“How?”
“His bolting. Did you know my father very well?”
“I’ve told you we were great friends.”
“Did you know my mother?”
Her eyelids flickered for a moment; but she replied steadily:
“No. I was only a student and your father was my private tutor. But I heard—from other people—a great deal about your mother. I believe she died many years ago, didn’t she?”
“Yes. When I was five. I barely remember her. I was brought up by my uncle and aunt—her people. They scarcely knew my father and haven’t a good word to say about him. It was only when I grew up and developed a sort of taste for mathematics, that I realized what a swell he was. And I can’t help being fascinated by the mystery of it. There he was, as far as I can gather, full of money, his own (which he walked off with) and of mother’s, beginning to enjoy at thirty a world-wide reputation—and suddenly he disappears off the face of the earth. It wasn’t a question of suicide. For the man who buys a ticket for the next world doesn’t go to peculiar trouble to take all his worldly estate with him. It isn’t reasonable, is it?”