Hard-Pan

To see the effect of her question, she stretched forward a plump white hand and tilted to one side one of the pink silk petticoats that veiled the candle-flames. The obstruction removed, she looked with vivacious interest at the person to whom she had addressed her query. He, too, had just dropped his sugar into his coffee, and was stirring it slowly, watching the little maelstrom in the cup. "Colonel Ramsay Reed," he said, without looking up. "Yes, I think I've heard something about his having a daughter. But why do you ask me? Isn't Maud a much better person? She knows everything about everybody."