"Thanks awfully for your invitation to luncheon," said Askew.
"Which you forgot."
"Did I ever receive it?" he asked doubtfully.
"Did not my last remark imply the invitation. Remarkable!"
So irrelevant sounded the last word that Aksakoff queried its reason.
"Not that a man should forget an invitation," she explained; "but that a single meal should escape his greedy memory."
"You make me out to be a gourmet," hinted the invited guest.
"Why not a gourmand? One speaks French in Paris."
"Not invariably, since we now converse in English," said Askew, dryly; and she approved of the retort. Clearly he was rapidly recovering from the green-sickness of crude passion.
Meantime Joan instructed Aksakoff in ancient history. "The hieroglyphics on the Place de la Concorde Obelisk describe the triumphs of Rameses II., who reigned over Egypt in the fourteenth century before Christ. Mr. Askew knows him."