“Really your question is a curious one,” I exclaimed, smiling, although inwardly I resented her intrusion upon my affairs.
“Do not think I intended to be unduly inquisitive,” my youthful hostess said quickly, fidgeting with her golden bangle whereon a tiny bell tinkled musically as she moved, and glancing up at me with her dark, bright eyes.
“Ella’s past can concern no one except herself,” I observed, rather puzzled. There was a strange, half-suspicious expression in her face that I had not at first noticed.
“If you intend to marry her it concerns you also, does it not?” she asked, in a quiet, grave voice.
“Yes, of course,” I answered. “But how do you know I intend to marry her?”
“I have heard so, and have seen you together,” she answered, rather evasively.
“Well, let us come to the point at once,” I said, still smiling, and feigning to be amused. “Tell me what objection there is to her. Why do you inquire about her past?”
“Because it is a mystery,” she replied, regarding me calmly, the strange glint in her penetrating eyes increasing my mistrust.
“In what way?” I inquired. I had known Mrs Laing and Ella for over a year, and certainly nothing I had learnt regarding their antecedents had excited my suspicion. The Yorkshire Laings are a county family, and Edward Laing, Ella’s father, had been the head of the great shipping firm that has its headquarters in Hull, and is well-known in the North Sea and Atlantic trades. At his death the concern was turned into a company, and Mrs Laing and her daughter had travelled for nearly three years, returning to London shortly before I met them. The statement that Ella’s past was mysterious was certainly puzzling, therefore I added, “When you make an allegation, I really think it is only fair that you should substantiate it.”
She shrugged her shoulders with a foreign mannerism that was charming, exclaiming in her broken English,—“Ah, you understand me not, m’sieur. I speak not your language with politeness. Well, it is, oh, so very difficult?”