John could distinctly remember that he had brought up the subject of his grandmother’s death, not out of any sense of familial piety, but as a conscious experiment by which to gauge Sir Christopher’s reaction. Though he himself knew almost everything possible about the Noble-Nolan family – Sir Christopher sometimes joked, not unpleasantly, that John knew more about his family than he did himself – he was acutely conscious that the Forde family was a complete blank to Sir Christopher. He was sure that, though Sir Christopher knew John was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, in a Catholic family, he would have been incapable of situating, in any concrete way, the milieu from which he sprang; he was equally sure that, though Sir Christopher was aware that John had several brothers, h
