"Won't you have a cigar?" he asked.
"But thanks," said the visitor. "A cigarette only, if you do not object?" He produced a yellow packet of Marylands, and offered it to Jim.
"Thank you," said Stainton, lighting the cigarette. He did not like it, because, being an American, he did not care for American tobacco; but he tried to appear to like it. He wondered what he should talk about. "I shall be glad to make use of your kind offer."
"You will honour me," said the Frenchman.
"Um. And are you, too, interested in mining investments?"
The visitor dismissed mines and mining to his brother with a wave of his short hand. Stainton noticed that his fingers, though not long, were well shaped and tapering, in contradistinction to the spatulate thumbs, and that he wore a diamond set in a ring of thick gold.
"Those there are the avocation of my brother. I take no part in these affairs of the bourse. You will me forgive if I say, monsieur, that I have no traffic with such abominations of our society modern. I am a man of science."
"A doctor?" asked Jim.
"Of medicine."
For a moment Stainton revolved the idea of taking the visitor to see Muriel, but he divined Muriel's attitude toward such an action and banished the thought. Her indisposition was, of course, but natural and passing.