"I trust you have not gained the impression that my momentary faintness had anything to do with your name," he said. "My attack at that time was merely a coincidence. I am subject to these spells of faintness. I hope this one did not alarm you."
He looked at me directly, as if expecting an answer.
"I am not easily alarmed," I returned, trying hard to keep out of my voice anything save the indifferent courtesy which one would bestow upon a stranger, for the atmosphere of mystery seemed deepening about this stranger and me. I did not believe he had spoken the truth, when he said that my utterance of my maiden name, in response to his question, had nothing to do with his faintness. I was as certain as I was of anything that it was the utterance of that name, the revelation of my identity thus made to him, that caused his emotion. I sat thrilled, tense, in anticipation of revelations to follow.
Mr. Gordon's voice was quiet, but a poignant little thrill ran through it, which I caught as he spoke again.
"Was not your mother's name Margaret Bickett and your father's, Charles Spencer?" he asked.
"You are quite correct." I forced the words through lips stiffened by excitement.
I saw Dicky look at me curiously, almost impatiently, but I had no eyes, no ears, save for the mysterious stranger who was quizzing me about my parents.
One of Mr. Gordon's hands was beneath the table; as he was sitting next to his I saw what no one else did--that the long, slender, sensitive fingers pressed themselves deeply, quiveringly, into the palm at my affirmation of his question. But except for that momentary grip there was no evidence of excitement in his demeanor as he turned to me.
"I thought so," he said quietly. "I have found the daughter of the dearest friends I ever had. Your resemblance to your mother is marvelous. I remember that you looked much like her when you were a tiny girl."
"You were at our home in my childhood, then?" I asked, wondering if this might be the explanation of my uncanny notion that I had sometime in my life seen this man bending over his demitasse as he had done a few minutes before.
"Oh, yes," he said, "your mother, as I have told you, was the dearest friend I ever had. And your father was my other self--then--"