that only came later. So I remarked that, not having seen him for so
many years, it was very possible I shouldn't know him.

"Well, I've not seen him for a considerable time, but I expect I shall
know him all the same."

"Oh with you it's different," I returned with harmlessly bright
significance. "Hasn't he been back since those days?"

"I don't know," she sturdily professed, "what days you mean."

"When I knew him in Paris--ages ago. He was a pupil of the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. He was studying architecture."

"Well, he's studying it still," said Grace Mavis.

"Hasn't he learned it yet?"

"I don't know what he has learned. I shall see." Then she added for the
benefit of my perhaps undue levity: "Architecture's very difficult and
he's tremendously thorough."

"Oh yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must have
become quite a foreigner if it's so many years since he has been at
home."

She seemed to regard this proposition at first as complicated; but she
did what she could for me. "Oh he's not changeable. If he were
changeable--"