If I were writing such a
book I would tell of the Americans I once met at Nuremberg, and with
whom I travelled to Paris; it was such a pleasant journey. I should
have liked to keep up their acquaintance, but it is not the etiquette
of the road to do so. But I am writing no such book; I am writing the
quest of a golden fleece, and may allow myself no further deflection
in the narrative; I may tell, however, of the two very interesting
people I met at dinner on board _La Cote d'Azur_, though some
readers will doubt if it be any integral part of my story. The woman
was a typical French woman, pleasant and agreeable, a woman of the
upper middle classes, so she seemed to me, but as I knew all her ideas
the moment I looked at her, conversation with her did not flourish; or
would it be more true to say that her husband interested me more,
being less familiar? His accent told me he was French; but when he
took off his hat I could see that he had come from the tropics--
Algeria I thought; not unlikely a soldier. His talk was less
stilted than a soldier's, and I began to notice that he did not look
like a Frenchman, and when he told me that he lived in an oasis in the
desert, and was on his way home, his Oriental appearance I explained
by his long residence among the Arabs.
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