“It is conventional, Monsieur,” said Carl evenly, “to betray interest and concern in the wreck of one’s property. Voila!  I have effectively completed what you had begun.  If I am not indifferent, surely one may with reason look for a glimmer of concern from you.”

Shrugging, the man stared sullenly at the car, a hopeless torch now suffusing the lonely road with light.  There was a certain suggestion of racial subtlety in the careful immobility of his face, but his dark, inscrutable eyes were blazing dangerously.

Carl’s careless air of interest altered indefinably.  Inspecting his chafing prisoner now with narrowed, speculative eyes which glinted keenly, he fell presently to whistling softly, laughed and with tantalizing abruptness fell silent again.  Immobile and subtle now as his silent companion, he stared curiously at the other’s fastidiously pointed beard, at the dark eyes and tightly compressed lips, and impudently proffered his cigarettes.  They were impatiently declined.

“Monsieur is pleased,” said Carl easily, “to reveal many marked peculiarities of manner, owing to the unbalancing fact, I take it, that his mind is relentlessly pursuing one channel.  Monsieur,” went on Carl, lazily lighting his own cigarette and staring into his companion’s face with a look of level-eyed interest, “Monsieur has been praying ardently for—­opportunities, is it not so?  ’I will humor this mad fool who motors about in the rain like an operatic comet!’ says Monsieur inwardly, ’for I am, of course, a stranger to him.  Then, without arousing undue interest, I may presently escape into the storm whence I came—­er—­driving atrociously.’”

The man stared.

“Monsieur,” purred Carl audaciously, “is doubtless more interested in—­let us say—­camp fires for instance, than such a vulgar blaze as yonder car.”

“One is powerless,” returned the other haughtily, “to answer riddles.”

Carl bowed with curiously graceful insolence.

“As if one could even hope to break such splendid nerve as that!” he murmured appreciatively.  “It is an impassiveness that comes only with training.  Monsieur,” he added imperturbably, “I have had the pleasure—­of seeing you before.”

“It is possible!” shrugged the other politely.

“Under strikingly different conditions!” pursued Carl reminiscently.  There was a disappointing lack of interest in the other’s face.

“Even that is possible,” assented the foreigner stiffly, “Environment is a shifting circumstance of many colors.  The honor of your acquaintance, however, I fear is not mine.”

Carl’s eyes, dark and cold as agate, compelled attention.

“My name,” said he deliberately, “is Granberry, Carl Westfall Granberry.”

The brief interval of silence was electric.

“It is a pity,” said the other formally, “that the name is unfamiliar.  Monsieur Granberi, the storm increases.  My ill-fated car, I take it, requires no further attention.”  He stopped short, staring with peculiar intentness at the road beyond.  In the faint sputtering glow of the embers by the wayside his face looked white and strained.