Taller by a head than anybody in the room except Duchemin, his figure was remarkably thin, yet not ill-proportioned.  Neither was Mr. Monk ill at ease or ungraceful in his actions.  Clothed in that extravagantly correct costume—­correct, at least, for a drawing-room, if never for motoring—­he had all the appearance of a comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser.  One naturally expected of him mere grotesqueries—­and found simply the courteous demeanour of a gentleman of the world.  So much for externals.  But what more?  Nature herself had cast Mr. Monk in the very mould of a masquerader.  What manner of man was hidden behind the mask?  His words and deeds alone would tell; Duchemin could only weigh the one and await the other.

In the meantime Mr. Monk was sketching rapidly for the benefit of Madame de Sevenie the excuse for his present plight.

A chance meeting at Monte Carlo, he said, with his old friends, the Comte et Comtesse de Lorgnes, had resulted in their yielding to his insistence that they tour with him back to Paris by this roundabout way.

“A whim of my age, madame.”  Somehow the nasal intonation of the American suited singularly well his fluent French; he seemed to have less trouble with his R’s than most Anglo-Saxons.  “As a young man—­a younger man—­ah, well, in Ninety-four, then—­I explored this country on a walking tour, inspired by Stevenson.  You know, perhaps, his diverting Travels with a Donkey?  But I daresay its spirit would hardly have survived translation....  At all events, I had the whim to revisit some of those well-remembered scenes.  I say some, for naturally it would be impossible, even with the vastly improved roads of to-day, for my automobile to penetrate everywhere I wandered afoot.  Nor would I wish it to; a few disappointments, a few failures to recapture something of that first fine careless rapture, would instill a lyric melancholy; but too many would make one morbid....  Well, then:  at Nant, in those old days, I once had a famous dinner; and naturally, returning, I must try to duplicate it, even though it meant going on to Millau in the rain.  But alas! the Cafe de l’Univers is no more what it was—­or I am grown over critical.”

What now of Duchemin’s doubts?  To tell the sad truth, they were just as strong as ever.  The man was somehow prejudiced:  he found Monk’s story entirely too glib, and knew a mean sense of gratification when the cure interposed a gentle correction.

“But in Ninety-four, monsieur, there was no Cafe de l’Univers in Nant.”

Astonished eyebrows climbed the forehead of Mr. Monk.

“No, monsieur le cure?  Truly not?  Then it must have been another.  How one’s memory will play one false!”

“How strange, then, is coincidence,” Madame de Sevenie suggested.  “You who made a walking tour of this country so long ago, monsieur, regard there that good Monsieur Duchemin, himself engaged upon just such an undertaking.”