He sighed and took another sip of his own drink, then refilled my own again.

"Before going into that, Mr. Perry," he said, "there are a few details about your background concerning which I'd like to be certain. I must be sure—absolutely sure—that you are the gentleman I think you are.

Have you any objection to answering a few questions?"

I chuckled.

"You saved my life and you're buying the drinks. Ask away."

"All right. Is it or is it not a fact that your mother was an actress," he began, "and that she died in poverty."

"Damn it, sir!" I responded, then got hold of myself. "Those are the facts," I said more softly, "as I understand them. I was not quite three years old when her death occurred."

His expression did not change, and his gaze fell upon my wineglass for the barest instant. Almost as a cue, I felt obliged to raise it and drain it. I did so, and he refilled it immediately, following this with but the smallest sip from his own.

"She died of consumption?" he went on. "In the city of Richmond?"

"That is correct."

"Satisfactory," he replied. "And what of your father?"

" 'Satisfactory,' sir?" I inquired.

"Come, come, young man," he said, touching my arm. "Sensitivity must wait. Matters of great moment hang in the balance here. I meant only that it was the answer I hoped to hear from you. Now, your father?"

I nodded.

"He was an actor, also, by all reports. He vanished from my mother's life and from mine, a year or two before she died."

"Indeed," he muttered, as if that, too, were satisfactory. "And you had the good fortune, upon your mother's death, to be adopted by a prosperous Richmond merchant," he continued, "John Allan, and his wife?"

"I would say rather that Mrs. Allan took pity on an orphan, and took me in. I was never formally adopted."