"But Monsieur Monk!" madame la comtesse exclaimed with vivacity: "do you know what I have just discovered? You and Madame de Montalais are compatriots. She is of your New York. You must know each other."
"I have been wondering," Monk admitted, bowing to Eve, "if it were possible I could be misled by a strong resemblance."
Eve turned to him with a look of surprise. "Yes, monsieur?"
"It is many years ago, you were a young girl then, if it was truly you, madame; but I have a keen eye for beauty, I do not soon forget it ... I was in the private office of my friend, Edmund Anstruther, of Cottier's, one afternoon, selecting a trinket with his advice, and--"
"That was my father, monsieur."
"Then it was you, madame; I felt sure of it. You came in unannounced, to see your father. He made me known to you as a friend of his, and requested you to wait in an adjoining office. But that was not necessary, I had already made up my mind, I left almost immediately. Do you by any chance remember?"
The effort of the memory knitted Eve's brows; but in the end she shook her head. "I am sorry, monsieur--"
"But why should you be? Why should you have remembered me? You were a young girl, then, as I say, and I already a man of middle age. You saw me once, for perhaps two minutes. It would have been a miracle had I remained in your memory for as long as a single day. Nevertheless, I remembered."
"I am so glad to meet a friend of my father's, monsieur."
"And I to recall myself to his daughter. I have often wondered ... Would you mind telling me something, Madame de Montalais?"