Paul complied, and, still with the letter in his hand, began: "I shall have to ask questions that would be impertinent if you had not said that I might try to help you. Do you--was Lizzie engaged?"
"Oh, no!" replied Mrs. White, with a little gasp; "what made you think so?"
"I don't think so, and what I really tried to ask was whether she were in love with anybody?"
Mrs. White looked doubtfully at him. Her eyes were dry now, and she toyed nervously with her apron.
"My daughter didn't tell me she was going away," she answered slowly after a minute; "if she wouldn't tell me that, how should you expect that she would speak to me of her love--if she did love anybody?"
Paul was somewhat nettled at this apparent effort to juggle with his question. The situation seemed to him too serious to admit of anything but the most complete frankness.
"I don't ask how you know, or why you don't, Mrs. White," he said as gently as he could; "I simply asked for a statement of fact."
The landlady looked down at the floor, evidently trying to frame an answer. Paul would have dropped the matter right there, disgusted at her reticence if not her indirection, had he not been determined to learn everything possible that might throw light upon the fate of his friends. So he began on another tack.
"Weren't you invited to Strobel's wedding, Mrs. White?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied promptly, not suspecting the ultimate aim of the question; "both of us received invitations."
"Lizzie didn't want to go. She said weddings always made her feel solemn, and I didn't want to go without her."
"Wasn't there a deeper reason, Mrs. White, for your daughter's reluctance to go to Ivan Strobel's wedding?"
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Palovna," said the landlady, glancing at him and averting her eyes.
Paul wanted to tell her that she was trying to dodge him, but he controlled himself and said:
"I mean that in my opinion your daughter was hopelessly in love with Ivan."
This statement did not provoke the storm that Paul had expected. Mrs. White's reserve had prepared him for an outburst of denials, indignant tears and the like, but the old lady sat very still, her hands clasped upon her lap, and after a little silence she spoke dreamily: