“A lady! What lady?”
“The lady who passed the inn three days ago. I spoke of her then, you remember.”
“Tonnerre de Dieu!” Keredec slapped his thigh with the sudden violence of a man who remembers that he has forgotten something, and as a final addition to my amazement, his voice rang more of remorse than of reproach. “Have I never told you that to follow strange ladies is one of the things you cannot do?”
“That other monsieur” shook his head. “No, you have never told me that. I do not understand it,” he said, adding irrelevantly, “I believe this gentleman knows her. He says he thinks he has seen her.”
“If you please, we must not trouble this gentleman about it,” said the professor hastily. “Put on your hat, in the name of a thousand saints, and let us go!”
“But I wish to ask him her name,” urged the other, with something curiously like the obstinacy of a child. “I wish—”
“No, no!” Keredec took him by the arm. “We must go. We shall be late for our dinner.”
“But why?” persisted the young man.
“Not now!” The professor removed his broad felt hat and hurriedly wiped his vast and steaming brow—a magnificent structure, corniced, at this moment, with anxiety. “It is better if we do not discuss it now.”
“But I might not meet him again.”