The misty curtain lifted and the clouds seemed to part in the sky. Stars twinkled up above.
Shears took his pipe from the pocket of his Inverness cape, filled it and struck four matches, one after the other, without succeeding in lighting it. As he had none left, he rose and said to a gentleman seated a few steps off:
"Could you oblige me with a light, please?"
The gentleman opened a box of fusees and struck one. A flame blazed up. By its light, Shears saw Arsène Lupin.
If the Englishman had not given a tiny movement, an almost imperceptible movement of recoil, Lupin might have thought that his presence on board was known to him, so great was the mastery which Shears retained over himself and so natural the ease with which he held out his hand to his adversary:
"Bravo!" exclaimed Lupin, from whom this self-command drew a cry of admiration.
"Bravo?... What for?"
"What for? You see me reappear before you like a ghost, after witnessing my dive into the Seine, and, from pride, from a miraculous pride which I will call essentially British, you give not a movement of astonishment, you utter not a word of surprise! Upon my word, I repeat, bravo! It's admirable!"