Morhange looked me full in the face.

"And if that should be so," he said with the most charming attitude,
"if I had before leaving the conviction you say, what do you conclude
from that?"

"I should prefer to have you tell me."

"Simply, my dear boy, that I had less skill than you in finding the
pretext for my voyage, that I furnished less good reasons for the true
motives that brought me here."

"A pretext? I don't see...."

"Be sincere in your turn, if you please. I am sure that you have the
greatest desire to inform the Arabian Office about the practices of
the Senoussis. But admit that the information that you will obtain is
not the sole and innermost aim of your excursion. You are a geologist,
my friend. You have found a chance to gratify your taste in this trip.
No one would think of blaming you because you have known how to
reconcile what is useful to your country and agreeable to yourself.
But, for the love of God, don't deny it; I need no other proof than
your presence here on this side of the Tidifest, a very curious place
from a mineralogical point of view, but some hundred and fifty
kilometers south of your official route."

It was not possible to have countered me with a better grace. I
parried by attacking.