Was it wise to leave your native land--your parents, for all the ills that might befall you in a strange country ?" "It was not," admitted Derrick, with a smile.
At the smile, which transformed his face, Donna Elvira's long, exquisitely-shaped hands closed spasmodically on the arms of the chair and a strange expression flashed for an instant across her face; it was an expression almost of fear, of the suddenly-awakened memory of a thing painful, poignant.

The expression lasted only for an instant; the next, her face was quite calm again.
"Had you quarrelled with your parents ?" she asked, with a kind of polite interest.
"I have no parents," said Derrick; "they are dead." She was silent for a moment; then she said: "That is sad; but death is the common lot." There was another pause; then she said: "Don Jose tells me that you are seeking employment, but that he could find you none.

Will you tell me what it is that you have done, the work you were accustomed to do ?" "Well, I've been all sorts of things," said Derrick, reluctantly enough.
"By profession I'm an engineer, I suppose; but----" He paused.

"Well, I had a stroke of bad luck in England, and I had to leave it and chuck up my profession.

Since then I've been a jack-of-all-trades." "What you have told me has interested me," Donna Elvira said.