A voice from the dark veranda reached Farris and startled him. It startled him because it was a girl’s voice, speaking in French.
“Please, Andre! Don’t go again! It is madness!”
A man’s voice rapped harsh answer, “Lys, tais-toi! Je reviendrai —’’
Farris coughed diplomatically and then said up to the darkness of the veranda, “Monsieur Berreau?”
There was a dead silence. Then the door of the house was swung open so that light spilled out on Farris and his guide.
By the light, Farris saw a man of thirty, bareheaded, in whites — a thin, rigid figure. The girl was only a white blur in the gloom.
He climbed the steps. “I suppose you don’t get many visitors. My name is Hugh Farris. I have a letter for you, from the Bureau at Saigon.”
There was a pause. Then, “If you will come inside, M’sieu Farris—”
In the lamplit, bamboo-walled living room, Farris glanced quickly at the two.
Berreau looked to his experienced eye like a man who had stayed too long in the tropics — his blond handsomeness tarnished by a corroding climate, his eyes too feverishly restless.