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 spiteful comedy, at play in the African sky, had looked down upon him and with malevolent laughter had seen to it that there should be no escape from his aversion; it was a question of a few days, perhaps of a few hours, when the Old Man of the Sea would be upon him again. There was no longer a possible doubt of Mme. Momoro's diplomacy; and Ogle underwent the experience of knowing that he was being used—not a comfortable experience for a young man by no means selfless or lacking a fair opinion of his own significance.

In the morning, if he chose, he could assert himself; he could say, "No; we aren't going to lunch with Sir William Broadfeather in the Chabat. We're not going on to Setif and Biskra and Batna and Constantine and the rest of it, looking for a person named Tinker—who has his family with him, by the way, and is therefore in no pressing need of our society. We're going back to Algiers." For a little while he thought he had determined upon this virile course and took a grim pleasure in thinking of it—until he realized that he wasn't capable of saying such a thing to Mme. Momoro. Here he fell short as an analyst: he didn't know why he wasn't capable of it; he knew only that he wasn't. But there were other reasons