"Yours, señor, by her Excellency's instructions." He disappeared, but
presently returned and laid a pile of clothes on the bed with another,
"Yours, señor. I will await you."
With a feeling of bewilderment, of unreality, Derrick changed into the
fresh clothes slowly, eyeing and touching them as if he suspected
something of magic in them.
A little while afterwards the major-domo appeared and led him into a
luxuriously-furnished room. Donna Elvira was reclining in a chair; she
inclined her head slightly and motioned him to be seated opposite her.
At his entrance she had shot one swift glance at him, her brows had
drawn together, and her lips had quivered; but now she sat calmly, her
hands clasped tightly in her lap. Derrick was the first to speak.
"I want to thank you, señora, for your great kindness to me," he said,
with all a man's awkwardness. "It is all the greater because I am a
stranger, a man you know nothing about----"
He paused at this, and his face grew red, for the story of the forged
cheque flashed across his mind.
She raised her eyes and looked at him.
"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice. "One in my position learns to
judge men and women by their faces, their voices. Besides, I have told
you that I have been in England, and I know when one is a gentleman.
But, if you wish, if you think you would like me to know more, you may
tell me--just what you please." There was a slight pause. "For instance,
your father--was he an engineer, like yourself?"
Derrick leant back and crossed his legs, and looked, not at the pale
face before him, but at the floor, and his brows were knit.
"It will sound strange to you, señora," he said, slowly, "but I don't
know what my father was--not even what kind of a man he was. I never saw
him--to remember him."
"He died--when you were young?" asked Donna Elvira.
"Yes," assented Derrick, "and my mother, too. They must have been fairly
well off--not poor, I mean--for they left me, or, rather, the people in
whose charge they placed me, sufficient money to bring me up and educate
me, and enable me to gain a profession."
A shaded lamp stood on a table at the side of Donna Elvira's chair. As
if she found the light oppressive, she moved the lamp farther back, so
that her face was completely in the shade.