And next day M. de Stermaria, who remembered that the barrister had once held a brief for one of his friends, came up and introduced himself.

“Our friends in common, the de Cambremers, were anxious that we should meet; the days didn’t fit; I don’t know quite what went wrong⁠—” stammered the barrister, who, like most liars, imagined that other people do not take the trouble to investigate an unimportant detail which, for all that, may be sufficient (if chance puts you in possession of the humble facts of the case, and they contradict it) to show the liar in his true colours and to inspire a lasting mistrust.

Then as at all times, but more easily now that her father had left her and was talking to the barrister, I was gazing at Mlle.