De Chauxville waved aside the small contretemps with easy nonchalance.

"Not necessarily," he said, in cold, even tones. "Mrs. Sydney Bamborough
does not habitually take into her confidence all who happen to dine at
the same table as herself. Your confidential woman is usually a liar."

Steinmetz was filling his pipe; this man had the evil habit of smoking a
wooden pipe after a cigar.

"My very dear De Chauxville," he said, without lookup, "your epigrams
are lost on me. I know most of them. I have heard them before. If you
have anything to tell me about Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, for Heaven's sake
tell it to me quite plainly. I like plain dishes and unvarnished
stories. I am a German, you know; that is to say, a person with a dull
palate and a thick head."

De Chauxville laughed again in an unemotional way.

"You alter little," he said. "Your plainness of speech takes me back to
Petersburg. Yes, I admit that Mrs. Sydney Bamborough rather interested
me. But I assume too much; that is no reason why she should interest
you."

"She does not, my good friend, but you do. I am all attention."

"Do you know anything of her?" asked De Chauxville perfunctorily, not as
a man who expects an answer or intends to believe that which he may be
about to hear.

"Nothing."