across that cafe.

I was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance
towards my table with his friend. The latter was eminently
elegant. He was exactly like one of those figures one can see of a
fine May evening in the neighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris.
Very Parisian indeed. And yet he struck me as not so perfectly
French as he ought to have been, as if one's nationality were an
accomplishment with varying degrees of excellence. As to Mills, he
was perfectly insular. There could be no doubt about him. They
were both smiling faintly at me. The burly Mills attended to the
introduction: "Captain Blunt."

We shook hands. The name didn't tell me much. What surprised me
was that Mills should have remembered mine so well. I don't want
to boast of my modesty but it seemed to me that two or three days
was more than enough for a man like Mills to forget my very
existence. As to the Captain, I was struck on closer view by the
perfect correctness of his personality. Clothes, slight figure,
clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face, pose, all this was so good that
it was saved from the danger of banality only by the mobile black
eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet every day in the south of
France and still less in Italy. Another thing was that, viewed as
an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficiently professional.
That imperfection was interesting, too.

You may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but
you may take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough
life, that it is the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and
events, that count for interest and memory--and pretty well nothing