Even after they unmasked Talbot I had neither the heart nor the
inclination to turn him down. Indeed, had not some of the passengers
testified that I belonged to a different profession, the smoking-room
crowd would have quarantined me as his accomplice. On the first night I
met him I was not certain whether he was English or giving an imitation.
All the outward and visible signs were English, but he told me that,
though he had been educated at Oxford and since then had spent most of
his years in India, playing polo, he was an American. He seemed to have
spent much time, and according to himself much money, at the French
watering-places and on the Riviera. I felt sure that it was in France I
had already seen him, but where I could not recall. He was hard to
place. Of people at home and in London well worth knowing he talked
glibly, but in speaking of them he made several slips. It was his taking
the trouble to cover up the slips that first made me wonder if his
talking about himself was not mere vanity, but had some special object.
I felt he was presenting letters of introduction in order that later he
might ask a favor.
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