He uttered a private but heartfelt "Damn!" and bowed profoundly as the woman, tapping Athenais on the arm with a fan crusted with diamonds, demanded:
"Present instantly, my dear, this gentleman who tangoes as I have never seen the tango danced before!"
Forestalling Athenais, Lanyard replied with a whimsical grimace: "Is one, then, so unfortunate as to have been forgotten by Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes?"
With any other woman than Athenais Reneaux he would have hesitated to deal so bold an offensive stroke; but his confidence in her quickness of apprehension and her unshakable self-possession was both implicit and well-placed. For she received this overt notification of the success of his quest without one sign other than a look of dawning puzzlement.
"Madame la comtesse...?" she murmured with a rising inflection.
"But monsieur is mistaken," the other stammered, biting her lip.
"Surely one cannot have been so stupid!" Lanyard apologised.
"But this is Mademoiselle Delorme," Athenais said ... "Monsieur Paul Martin."
Liane Delorme! Those syllables were like a spoken spell to break the power of dark enchantment which had hampered Lanyard's memory ever since first sight of this woman in the Café de l'Univers at Nant. A great light began to flood his understanding, but he was denied time to advantage himself immediately of its illumination: Liane Delorme was quick to parry and riposte.
"How strange monsieur should think he had ever known me by a name ... What was it? But no matter! For now I look more closely, I myself cannot get over the impression that I have known Monsieur--Martin, did you say?--somewhere, sometime ... But Paul Martin? Not unless monsieur has more than one name."