"I want you to forget names, except with regard to Lamotte, the chauffeur. Martiny and Rossi, for the time being, vanish into the Ewigkeit."
"What—forever?" Curtis could not help saying.
"No, for a week or so." Steingall darted a quick glance to his questioner. "I have a stupid trick of adopting phrases from my pet authors," he said. "Does Ewigkeit mean eternity?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, I withdraw it."
"Try Niflheim."
"Or Rüdesheim," suggested Devar wickedly.
Steingall laughed. Despite his German-sounding name, he spoke French fluently, but German not at all.
"They're off the map," he said. "There, that's good American, and I'll get on with my story, or rather, with the lack of it. I cannot, of course, foretell the exact lines our discussion with Schmidt and his clients will follow, but if I have made you understand that your combined share in it is to say little, and be thoroughly non-committal in anything you may have to say, I am content."
"You are as mysterious as an astrologer," vowed Devar. "Having money to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary roof. By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars. Did you spot those two last night, low down in the west?"