Chapter 3 - Page 2

years ago?"

"You are quite correct. Then you knew my mother?"

"Oh, dear me, no! I never even met her. Why THEN?"

Her look was mischievous. "But, unless I mistake, I think she came from
Hendre Coed, near Bangor."

"Wales is a village!" I exclaimed, catching my breath. "Every Welsh
person seems to know all about every other."

My new acquaintance smiled again. When she smiled she was irresistible:
a laughing face protruding from a cloud of diaphanous drapery. "Now,
shall I tell you how I came to know that?" she asked, poising a glace
cherry on her dessert fork in front of her. "Shall I explain my trick,
like the conjurers?"

"Conjurers never explain anything," I answered. "They say: 'So, you see,
THAT'S how it's done!'--with a swift whisk of the hand--and leave you as
much in the dark as ever. Don't explain like the conjurers, but tell me
how you guessed it."

She shut her eyes and seemed to turn her glance inward.

"About three years ago," she began slowly, like one who reconstructs
with an effort a half-forgotten scene, "I saw a notice in the
Times--Births, Deaths, and Marriages--'On the 27th of October'--was it
the 27th?" The keen brown eyes opened again for a second and flashed
inquiry into mine.

"Quite right," I answered, nodding.

"I thought so. 'On the 27th of October, at Brynmor, Bournemouth, Emily
Olwen Josephine, widow of the late Thomas Cumberledge, sometime colonel
of the 7th Bengal Regiment of Foot, and daughter of Iolo Gwyn Ford,
Esq., J.P., of Hendre Coed, near Bangor. Am I correct?" She lifted her
dark eyelashes once more and flooded me.

"You are quite correct," I answered, surprised. "And that is really all
that you knew of my mother?"

"Absolutely all. The moment I saw your card, I thought to myself, in a
breath: 'Ford, Cumberledge; what do I know of those two names? I have
some link between them. Ah, yes; found Mrs. Cumberledge, wife of Colonel
Thomas Cumberledge, of the 7th Bengals, was a Miss Ford, daughter of
a Mr. Ford, of Bangor.' That came to me like a lightning-gleam. Then I
said to myself again, 'Dr. Hubert Ford Cumberledge must be their son.'
So there you have 'the train of reasoning.' Women CAN reason--sometimes.
I had to think twice, though, before I could recall the exact words of
the Times notice."

"And can you do the same with everyone?"

"Everyone! Oh, come, now: that is expecting too much! I have not read,
marked, learned, and inwardly digested everyone's family announcements.
I don't pretend to be the Peerage, the Clergy List, and