Duchemin acknowledged with a humorous little nod Mr. Monk’s look of moderate amazement at this so strange coincidence.

“A whim of my age, monsieur,” he said—­“a project I have entertained since youth but always, till of late, lacked leisure to put into execution.”

“But is there anything more wonderful than the workings of the good God?” madame pursued.  “Observe that, if Monsieur Duchemin had been suffered to indulge his inclination in youth, we should all, I, my daughter, my grand-daughter, even poor Georges d’Aubrac, would quite probably be lying dead at the bottom of a cirque at Montpellier-le-Vieux.”

Naturally the strangers required to know about that, and Madame de Sevenie would talk, in fact doted on telling the tale of that great adventure.  Duchemin made a face of resignation, and heard himself extolled as a paladin for strength, address and valour; the truth being that he was not at all resigned and would infinitely liefer have been left out of the limelight.  The more he was represented as a person of consequence, the less fair his chance to study these others at his leisure, in the comfortable obscurity of their indifference.

Now the enigmatic eyes of Monk were boring into him, seeking to search his soul, with a question in their stare which he could not read and, quite likely, would have declined to answer if he could.  Also the eyes of Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes were very round and constant to him.  And before Madame de Sevenie was finished, Phinuit strolled in and heard enough to make him subject Duchemin to a not unfriendly, steady and open inspection.

And when the trumpets had been flourished finally for Duchemin, and he had dutifully assured madame that she was too generous and had acknowledged congratulations on his exploit, Phinuit strolled over and offered a hand.

“Good work,” he said in English.  “Seen you before, haven’t I, somewhere, Mr. Duchemin?”

Under other circumstances Duchemin, not at all hoodwinked by this too obvious stratagem, would have taken mean pleasure in looking blank and begging monsieur to interpret himself in French.  But, with or without cunning, Phinuit’s question was well-timed:  Eve de Montalais was at that moment entering the drawing-room with Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes, and she knew very well that Duchemin’s English was quite as good as his French.

“At the Cafe de l’Univers, this afternoon,” he replied frankly.

“I remember.  You drove away, just before the storm broke, in a ramshackle rig that must have come out of the Ark.”

“To come here, Mr. Phinuit.”

“Funny,” said Phinuit, with hesitation, “your being there, and then our turning up here.”

Duchemin thought he knew what was on the other’s mind.  “I was immensely entertained—­do you mind my saying so?—­to hear the way your chauffeur talked to you, monsieur.  Tell me:  Is it the custom in your country—?”