"Try me again," he said.

"I'm afraid I was thinking of something else." This was the best he found to say.

There was a part of him that wanted to protest and deny, but he had not heat enough, in the chill that had come upon him.

Here was the first "mention" of Alice, and with it the reason why it was the first: Mr.Palmer had difficulty in recalling her, and she happened to be spoken of, only because her father's betrayal of a benefactor's trust had been so peculiarly atrocious that, in the view of the benefactor's family, it contained enough of the element of humour to warrant a mild laugh at a club.

There was the deadliness of the story: its lack of malice, even of resentment.