The girl answered by a negative sign; and then at last she spoke,
jerkily, as if forcing herself against some doubt or fear. She had heard
of that very man, she told Heyst.
"Impossible!" he said positively. "You are mistaken. You couldn't have
heard of him, it's--"
He stopped short, with the thought that to talk like this was perfectly
useless; that one doesn't argue against thin air.
"But I did hear of him; only I didn't know then, I couldn't guess, that
it was your partner they were talking about."
"Talking about my partner?" repeated Heyst slowly.
"No." Her mind seemed almost as bewildered, as full of incredulity, as
his. "No. They were talking of you really; only I didn't know it."
"Who were they?" Heyst raised his voice. "Who was talking of me? Talking
where?"
With the first question he had lifted himself from his reclining
position; at the last he was on his knees before her, their heads on a
level.
"Why, in that town, in that hotel. Where else could it have been?" she
said.
The idea of being talked about was always novel to Heyst's simplified
conception of himself. For a moment he was as much surprised as if he
had believed himself to be a mere gliding shadow among men. Besides,
he had in him a half-unconscious notion that he was above the level of
island gossip.
"But you said first that it was of Morrison they talked," he remarked to
the girl, sinking on his heels, and no longer much interested.
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