Mr. Peacock was a florid man with the face of a cupid, the guile of a fox and the voice of an ogre. “I don’t care for that,” he told her.
“Nor I,” Blanche agreeably replied.
“I mean,” said Mr. Peacock, “that I don’t care about her victuals. She was in love with the dead man, wasn’t she?”
“I guess so,” Blanche with profound if unconscious psychology replied. “She was always scrapping with him. She—”
“Tell me,” Peacock interrupted, “what happened the last night he was there.”
“It was awful. He was trying to get rid of her. He wasn’t much and I told him so, but he was all she had. When I first came to her she said she was an orphan, that she hadn’t anybody anywhere, that they were all dead.”
“She may have meant,” Peacock with even profounder psychology interjected, “that she was dead to them.”
But this insinuation Blanche resented. “She could be lively enough when she liked.”
“Who came to see her?”
“ Mr. L. ”
“No one else?”
Blanche shook her head.
“Whom did she write to?”
“How do I know?”
“Didn’t you ever see her write to anyone?”