"He left a card for you," she said, as she groped among
the desk's contents. "I don't know what I did with it.
He wrote something on it."
"Oh, damn him, and his card too," Thorpe protested easily.
"I don't want to see either of them."
"He said he knew you in Mexico. He said you'd had
dealings together. He seemed to act as if you'd want
to see him--but I didn't know. I didn't tell him your address."
Thorpe had listened to these apathetic sentences without
much interest, but the sum of their message appeared
suddenly to catch his attention. He sat upright,
and after a moment's frowning brown study, looked sharply
up at his sister.
"What was his name?" he asked with abruptness.
"I don't in the least remember," she made answer, holding the
desk-top up, but temporarily suspending her search.
"He was a little man, five-and-fifty, I should think.
He had long grey hair--a kind of Quaker-looking man.
He said he saw the name over the door, and he remembered
your telling him your people were booksellers. He only
got back here in England yesterday or the day before.
He said he didn't know what you'd been doing since you
left Mexico. He didn't even know whether you were in England
or not!"
Thorpe had been looking with abstracted intentness at
a set of green-bound cheap British poets just at one
side of his sister's head.
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