in that extravagantly correct costume--correct, at least, for a
drawing-room, if never for motoring--he had all the appearance of a
comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser. One naturally expected of
him mere grotesqueries--and found simply the courteous demeanour of a
gentleman of the world. So much for externals. But what more? Nature
herself had cast Mr. Monk in the very mould of a masquerader. What
manner of man was hidden behind the mask? His words and deeds alone
would tell; Duchemin could only weigh the one and await the other.

In the meantime Mr. Monk was sketching rapidly for the benefit of
Madame de Sévénié the excuse for his present plight.

A chance meeting at Monte Carlo, he said, with his old friends, the
Comte et Comtesse de Lorgnes, had resulted in their yielding to his
insistence that they tour with him back to Paris by this roundabout
way.

"A whim of my age, madame." Somehow the nasal intonation of the
American suited singularly well his fluent French; he seemed to have
less trouble with his R's than most Anglo-Saxons. "As a young man--a
younger man--ah, well, in Ninety-four, then--I explored this country on
a walking tour, inspired by Stevenson. You know, perhaps, his diverting
Travels with a Donkey? But I daresay its spirit would hardly have
survived translation.... At all events, I had the whim to revisit some
of those well-remembered scenes. I say some, for naturally it would be
impossible, even with the vastly improved roads of to-day, for my
automobile to penetrate everywhere I wandered afoot. Nor would I wish
it to; a few disappointments, a few failures to recapture something of
that first fine careless rapture, would instill a lyric melancholy; but
too many would make one morbid.... Well, then: at Nant, in those old