The End of Her Honeymoon | Page 7

the stairs leading to her room was the word "Bureau": it was doubtless there that Jack had left word when he would be back.
She went across and opened the door, but to her surprise there was no one in the little office; she hadn't, however, long to wait, for Madame Poulain's nephew suddenly appeared from the courtyard.
He had on an apron; there was a broom in his hand, and as he came towards her, walking very, very slowly, there came over Nancy Dampier, she could not have told you why, a touch of repulsion from the slovenly youth.
"I wish to know," she said, "whether my husband left any message for me?"
But the young man shook his head. He shuffled first on one foot and then on the other, looking miserably awkward. It was plain that he did not know more than a word or two of English.
"I am sure," she said, speaking slowly and very distinctly, "that my husband left some kind of message with your uncle or aunt. Will you please ask one of them to speak to me?"
He nodded. "Si, mademoiselle" and walked quickly away, back into the courtyard.
"Mademoiselle" again! What an extraordinary hotel, and what bad manners these people had! And yet again and again Jack had compared English and French hotels--always to the disadvantage of the former.
Long minutes went by, and Nancy began to feel vexed and angry. Then there fell on her listening ears a phrase uttered very clearly in Madame Poulain's resonant voice: "C'est ton tour maintenant! Vas-y, mon ami!"
And before she had time to try and puzzle out the sense of the words, she saw Monsieur Poulain's portly figure emerge from the left side of the courtyard, and then--when he caught sight of the slim, blue-clad figure standing under his porte coch��re--beat a hasty retreat.
Nancy's sense of discomfort and indignation grew. What did these people mean by treating her like this? She longed with a painful, almost a sick longing for her husband's return. It must be very nearly eleven o'clock. Why did he stay away so long?
A painful, choking feeling--one she had very, very seldom experienced during the course of her short, prosperous life, came into her throat.
Angrily she dashed away two tears from her eyes.
This was a horrid hotel! The Poulains were hateful people! Jack had made a mistake--how could he have brought her to such a place? She would tell him when he came back that he must take her away now, at once, to some ordinary, nice hotel, where the people knew English, and where they treated their guests with ordinary civility.
And then there shot through Nancy Dampier a feeling of quick relief, for, walking across the courtyard, evidently on their way out, came a pleasant-looking elderly gentleman, accompanied by the girl whom Nancy had seen for a brief moment standing on the landing close to her bedroom door the night before.
These were English people? No, American of course! But that was quite as good, for they, thank heaven! spoke English. She could ask them to be her interpreters with those extraordinary Poulains. Jack wouldn't mind her doing that. Why, he might have left quite an important message for her!
She took a step forward, and the strangers stopped. The old gentleman--Nancy called him in her own mind an old gentleman, though Senator Burton was by no means old in his own estimation or in that of his contemporaries--smiled a very pleasant, genial smile.
Nancy Dampier made a charming vision as she stood under the arch of the porte coch��re, her slender, blue-clad figure silhouetted against the dark background by the street outside, and the colour coming and going in her face.
"May I speak to you a moment?" she said shyly.
"Why certainly."
The American took off his hat, and stood looking down at her kindly. "My name is Burton, Senator Burton, at your service! What can I do for you?".
The simple little question brought back all Nancy's usual happy confidence. How silly she had been just now to feel so distressed.
"I'm Mrs. Dampier, and I can't make the hotel people understand what I say," she explained. "I mean Monsieur and Madame Poulain--and the nephew--I think his name is Jules--though he is supposed to speak English, is so very stupid."
"Yes, indeed he is!" chimed in the girl whom her brother had called "Daisy." "I've long ago given up trying to make that boy understand anything, even in French. But they do work him most awfully hard, you know; they have women in each day to help with the cleaning, but that poor lad does everything else--everything, that is, that the Poulains don't do themselves."
"What is it that you can't make them understand?" asked Senator Burton indulgently. "Tell us what it is you want to ask them?"
"I only wish to know at what time