He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform into the dark turret of the staircase. The two men descended the steps and came out again into the semi-circle of the Place d'Armes.
"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he had some little thing to say and was not quite sure whether he would say it. Then he compromised. "You shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to your luncheon," he said.
"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied.
Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his outstretched forefinger.
"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take a Vermouth with me, and you will still reach the Maison Crenelle before Mademoiselle Harlowe. I say that, Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and consented.
"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her and Ann Upcott half through their meal."
A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and the Place d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out on the pavement beneath an awning. They sat down at one of them, and over the Vermouth, Hanaud was once more upon the brink of some recommendation or statement.
"You see——" he began and then once more ran away. "So you have been five times upon the top of the Mont Blanc!" he said. "From Chamonix?"
"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant by the Brenva glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once from the Brouillard glacier. And the last time by the Mont Mandit."
Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: