He sat on a heavy Plantscheman chair, leaning back, his legs crossed, a glass of wine in his hand. Stone Girl stood straight in front of him while Madame Corbusier told about her. She had the girl turn to one side to show her profile and to pull back her sleeves to bare her white upper arms.

“Yes, yes.” The Yengwe nodded. “I see what you mean. She could be Indian from her face but her inner parts give her away. Unless, of course, unless—have you ever considered that she might be a half-blood?”

“I have seen half-bloods, Major, and even pure-bloods, who could pass for whites so far as their faces were concerned,” Madame Corbusier said. “But none of them could show such whiteness of the inner flesh as she.”

“Extraordinary!” The visitor nodded. “I see what you mean.”

“Besides, she has memories of a white life. Also, there was an older white captive in her village who told her about herself.”

“All of this, you understand, madame, might be concocted, or, let us say, imagined,” the Yengwe officer pointed out. He turned his pale-blue eyes on the girl. “Tell me, girl, what some of your memories might be. I mean of your former life among our white people.”

Stone Girl remembered Simone. She stood silent until Madame Corbusier ordered her to be courteous and answer.

“Monsieur, I forget,” she said politely.

“Now, now, don’t be afraid of me, girl. I’m no cannibal. I’m not going to eat you. I’m not even going to accuse you of lying. After all, Madame Corbusier thinks you belong to my own race. I just would like to hear for myself what you remember of the English people. Your father, mother, the house you lived in, everything that comes to your mind.”

“Monsieur, I don’t remember. My mind today is Pomi, tallow.”

“Nonsense. You surely remember something,” he insisted.

“Monsieur, I have the toothache,” she declared. “It makes me forget.”

The great man flushed.

“You can’t have forgotten everything,” he broke out at her. “Enough of this malingering. Your white friend must have told you your name and about your father. Did you come from the town or country, the mountains, the cleared land or the forest? Did you live near a river?”

Stone Girl did not reply. Madame Corbusier answered for her.

“There was a river, Major. Her older friend talked a good deal about it.”

“A wide river?” he inquired.

“It was a very wide river, Claire was told. Hardly could you see across it. But not a deep river. The boats were flat and shallow.”

“Ah!” said the great man as if that meant something. From this time on he sat in deep thought after each question. There were many strange things he wanted to know. Stone Girl stood mostly impassive, watching his pale-blue eyes, and Madame Corbusier answered for her when she could. Sometimes he threw up his head and said, “Ah!” like a hound baying on the trail. More and more he nodded as if satisfied, and now when he looked at Stone Girl his face seemed to hold more respect. In the end he asked a most curious question. He wanted to know did her father speak in a loud voice, very loud like a gun?