He waited for a moment, appalled by this undisguised antipathy to the
mother, who, as he knew so well, had been wronged beyond measure by
the beast whom the girl, in her ignorance, defended. "My dear Miss
Grand," he said, "I am more than sorry if any rude inquisitiveness on
my part has led you to--"
"Oh, I want to talk about it to you," she interrupted with a
directness that made him more uncomfortable than ever. "I know that
you knew my father for what he really was. You knew how kind and good
he was, and how nobly he befriended the Braddocks and all those
wretched show people. You know how they treated him in return for his
generosity. I feel as if I had known you always."
"It's very nice of you," he mumbled helplessly. "You say the show
people turned against him. Do you mean at the--er--the trial?"
She lifted her brows, a sudden coldness in her manner.
"Not at all. I refer to what happened afterward."
"I am quite ignorant, Miss Grand," he said, a certain hoarseness
creeping into his voice.
"He was actually compelled to pay something like twenty thousand
dollars on the complaint of Mary Braddock, who set up the claim that
she owned part of the show.
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