"My name is Thanet, and I am the least well known of mortal men."
"Erreur, Monsieur, I have that distinction."
And he's going to let it go at that, thought Grover, chagrined to see that the Frenchman was preparing to saunter off. They were now in the entry, where students were jostling their way out of the building.
He had lost interest in M. Ripert, and his instinct was to depart as inconspicuously as he had come, but he dreaded the scolding he would be sure to give himself later in the day for having shirked the issue. At the risk of a snub he must face it. He walked out behind the bored young man and caught up with him as the latter paused to light a cigarette.
No one ever offers you a cigarette in this country, Grover reflected, fishing for his own,—nor yet a match, he added to himself, unless deliberately asked.
"Pardon, Monsteur, voulez-vous me donner du feu?"
The pale youth saved his flame, for which Grover thanked him with an echo of the ironic tone that had characterized the other's remarks throughout their brief exchange.
"I propose to walk with you at least to the top of the hill," Grover persisted, "come what may. I'd like to ask some questions."
"What questions?"
"On second thoughts they're not questions at all; they're statements." And without a trace of the mortification that had been surging through kim an hour
