"So you suppose, Valeria."

"I am certain of it."

"Pardon me--you don't know my mother as I do."

I began to lose all patience with him.

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that your mother was out on
the sands to-day for the express purpose of making acquaintance
with Me?"

"I have not the slightest doubt of it," he answered, coolly.

"Why, she didn't even recognize my name!" I burst out. "Twice
over the landlady called me Mrs. Woodville in your mother's
hearing, and twice over, I declare to you on my word of honor, it
failed to produce the slightest impression on her. She looked and
acted as if she had never heard her own name before in her life."

"'Acted' is the right word," he said, just as composedly as
before. "The women on the stage are not the only women who can
act. My mother's object was to make herself thoroughly acquainted
with you, and to throw you off your guard by speaking in the
character of a stranger. It is exactly like her to take that
roundabout way of satisfying her curiosity about a
daughter-in-law she disapproves of . If I had not joined you when
I did, you would have been examined and cross-examined about
yourself and about me, and you would innocently have answered
under the impression that you were speaking to a chance