“Hardly that,” said Zia; “you forget that I am thirty-three, M. Poirot. I am frank with you, because it is no good being otherwise. As you told my father it is exactly seventeen years since you aided us in Paris that time.”

“When I look at you, it seems much less,” said Poirot gallantly. “You were then very much as you are now, Mademoiselle, a little thinner, a little paler, a little more serious. Sixteen years old and fresh from your pension . Not quite the petite pensionnaire , not quite a woman. You were very delicious, very charming, Mademoiselle Zia; others thought so too, without doubt.”

“At sixteen,” said Zia, “one is simple and a little fool.”

“That may be,” said Poirot; “yes, that well may be. At sixteen one is credulous, is one not? One believes what one is told.”