Mueller shrugged his shoulders.

“Pshaw!” said he; “I know more than you think I know, Guichet.  There’s our friend, you know—­he of whom I made the head t’other day ... you remember?”

The model, still looking at him, made no answer.

“Why didn’t you say at once where you had met him, and all the rest of it, mon vieux?  You might have been sure I should find out for myself, sooner or later.”

The model turned abruptly towards the fire-place, and, leaning his head against the mantel-shelf, stood with his back towards us, looking down into the fire.

“You ask me why I did not tell you at once?” he said, very slowly.

“Ay—­why not?”

“Why not?  Because—­because when a man has begun to lead an honest life, and has gone on leading an honest life, as I have, for years, he is glad to put the past behind him—­to forget it, and all belonging to it.  How was I to guess you knew anything about—­about that place la bas?”

“And why should I not know about it?” replied Mueller, flashing a rapid glance at me.

Guichet was silent.

“What if I tell you that I am particularly interested in—­that place la bas?”

“Well, that may be.  People used to come sometimes, I remember—­artists and writers, and so on.”

“Naturally.”

“But I don’t remember to have ever seen you, M’sieur Mueller.”

“You did not observe me, mon cher—­or it may have been before, or after your time.”

“Yes, that’s true,” replied Guichet, ponderingly.  “How long ago was it, M’sieur Mueller?”

Mueller glanced at me again.  His game, hitherto so easy, was beginning to grow difficult.

“Eh, mon Dieu!” he said, indifferently, “how can I tell?  I have knocked about too much, now here, now there, in the course of my life, to remember in what particular year this or that event may have happened.  I am not good at dates, and never was.”

“But you remember seeing me there?”

“Have I not said so?”

Guichet took a couple of turns about the room.  He looked flushed and embarrassed.

“There is one thing I should like to know,” he said, abruptly.  “Where was I?  What was I doing when you saw me?”

Mueller was at fault now, for the first time.

“Where were you?” he repeated.  “Why, there—­where we said just now. La bas.”

“No, no—­that’s not what I mean.  Was I .... was I in the uniform of the Garde Chiourme?”

The color rushed into Mueller’s face as, flashing a glance of exultation at me, he replied:—­

“Assuredly, mon ami.  In that, and no other.”

The model drew a deep breath.

“And Bras de Fer?” he said.  “Was he working in the quarries ?”

“Bras de Fer!  Was that the name he went by in those days?”