So I looked like that! It was a surprise to me. I had thought he might mention the Embassy. My sense of superior standing was so strong that I expected another man of superior standing to see it at a glance. Contenting myself with a shake of the heads I felt his eyes on me with a graver stare.
"Must have found it useful to speak French so well, especially at a time like this."
I allowed that to pass without challenge.
"If we should ever go into the war a fellow like you could make himself handy in a lot of ways."
We were therefore not in the war. I was glad to add that to my list of facts. "I should try," I assented, feeling that the words committed me to nothing.
"Wonder you weren't tempted to pitch in as it was. A lot of our young Americans did—chaps who found themselves over there."
"I wasn't one of them."
"Poor Drinkwater, now—he went over with me as my stenographer in the spring of that year; and when the thing broke out—"
"He went?"
"Yes, he went."