The End of Her Honeymoon | Page 5

clientèle is mostly French. We have only this young lady, her brother, and their father, monsieur. The father is a Senator in his own country--Senator Burton. They are very charming people, and have stayed with us often before. All our other guests are French. We have never had such a splendid season: and all because of the Exhibition!"
"I'm glad you are doing well," said Dampier courteously. "But for my part"--he shrugged his shoulders--"I'm too much of a Parisian to like the Exhibition."
Then he turned to Nancy: "Well, you'll be quite safe, my darling. Monsieur and Madame Poulain are only just through here, so you needn't feel lonely."
And then there came a chorus of bonsoirs from host, from hostess, and from the lad who now stood waiting with the Englishman's large portmanteau hitched up on his shoulder.
Dampier bent and kissed his wife very tenderly: then he followed Monsieur Poulain and the latter's nephew up the stairs, while Madame Poulain stayed behind and helped Mrs. Dampier to unpack the few things she required for the night.
And Nancy, though she felt just a little bewildered to find herself alone in this strange house, was yet amused and cheered by the older woman's lively chatter, and that although she only understood one word in ten.
Madame Poulain talked of her daughter, Virginie, now in the country well away from the holiday crowds brought by the Exhibition, and also of her nephew, Jules, the lad who had carried up the luggage, and who knew--so Madame Poulain went to some pains to make Nancy understand--a little English.
Late though it was, the worthy woman did not seem in any hurry to go away, but at last came the kindly words which even Nancy, slight as was her knowledge of French, understood: "Bonsoir, madame. Dormez bien."




CHAPTER II
Nancy Dampier sat up in bed.
Through the curtain covering the square aperture in the wall which did duty for a window the strong morning light streamed in, casting a pink glow over the peculiar little room.
She drew the pearl-circled watch, which had been one of Jack's first gifts to her, from under the big, square pillow.
It was already half-past nine. How very tiresome and strange that she should have overslept herself on this, her first morning in Paris! And yet--and yet not so very strange after all, for her night had been curiously and disagreeably disturbed.
At first she had slept the deep, dreamless sleep of happy youth, and then, in a moment, she had suddenly sat up, wide awake.
The murmur of talking had roused her--of eager, low talking in the room which lay the other side of the deep cupboard. When the murmur had at last ceased she had dozed off, only to be waked again by the sound of the porte cochère swinging back on its huge hinges.
It was evidently quite true--as Jack had said--that Paris never goes to sleep.
Jack had declared he would get up and go over to the studio early, so there was nothing for it but to get up, and wait patiently till he came back. Nancy knew that her husband wouldn't like her to venture out into the streets alone. He was extraordinarily careful of her--careful and thoughtful for her comfort.
What an angel he was--her great strong, clever Jack!
A girl who goes about by herself as much as Nancy Tremain had gone about alone during the three years which had elapsed betwixt her leaving school and her marriage, obtains a considerable knowledge of men, and not of the nicest kind of men. But Jack was an angel--she repeated the rather absurdly incongruous word to herself with a very tender feeling in her heart. He always treated her not only as if she were something beautiful and rare, but something fragile, to be respected as well as adored....
He had left her so little during the last three weeks that she had never had time to think about him as she was thinking of him now; "counting up her mercies," as an old-fashioned lady she had known as a child was wont to advise those about her to do.
At last she looked round her for a bell. No, there was nothing of the sort in the tiny room. But Nancy Dampier had already learned to do without all sorts of things which she had regarded as absolute necessities of life when she was Nancy Tremain. In some of the humbler Italian inns in which she and Jack had been so happy, the people had never even heard of a bell!
She jumped out of bed, put on her pretty, pale blue dressing-gown--it was a fancy of Jack's that she should wear a great deal of pale blue and white--and then she opened the door a little way.
"Madame!" she called out gaily. "Madame Poulain?" and wondered whether her French would run