their very numbers."

"But you know Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay. They're not impersonal."

All he saw for the instant was that she arrested her needle half-way
through the stitch. She sat perfectly still, her head bent, her fingers
rigid, as she might have sat in trying to catch some sudden, distant
sound. It was only in thinking it over afterward that he realized what
she must have lived through in the seconds before she spoke.

"Does my father owe money to _them_?"

The hint of dismay was so faint that it might have eluded any ear but
one rendered sharp by suspicion. Davenant felt the blood rushing to his
temples and a singing in his head. "My God, she didn't know!" he cried,
inwardly. The urgency of retrieving his mistake kept him calm and cool,
prompting him to reply with assumed indifference.

"I really can't say anything about it. I suppose they would be among the
creditors--as a matter of course."

For the first time she let her clear, grave eyes rest fully on him. They
were quiet eyes, with exquisitely finished lids and lashes. In his
imagination their depth of what seemed like devotional reverie
contributed more than anything else to her air of separation and
remoteness.

"Isn't it very serious--when there's anything wrong with estates?"

He answered readily, still forcing a tone of careless matter-of-fact.