ouse under the landlady's jurisdiction.
They, poor dears, could have had no chauffeur friends to save them from
daily perils, and it isn't likely that their mistress allowed such
luxuries as postmen or policemen.

CHAPTER XI

I decided to have my breakfast very early next morning, and would have
thought it a coincidence that Mr. Dane should walk into the couriers'
room at the same time if he hadn't coolly told me that he had been lying
in wait for me to appear.

"I thought, for several reasons, you would be early," he said. "So, for
all the same reasons and several more, I thought I'd be early too. I had
to know what the situation was to be."

"The situation?" I repeated blankly.

"Between us. Am I to understand that we've quarrelled?"

"We had," I said. "But even on good grounds, it's difficult to keep on
quarrelling with a person who has not only brought up your dinner and
sauced it with good advice, but saved you from--from the _dickens_ of a
scrape."

"I hope she didn't row you any more afterward?"

"No. She was too much interested, all the time I was undressing her, in
speculating about Monsieur Charretier to Sir Samuel. It seems that they
struck up an acquaintance over their coffee on the strength of a little
episode in the hall.

"Inadvertently I introduced them--threw them at each others' heads.
Monsieur Charretier--Alphonse, as he once asked me to call him!--told
her he was on his way to Cannes, where he heard that a friend of his,
whom it was very necessary for him to see, was visiting a Russian
Princess. He had stopped in Avignon, he said, because he was expecting
the latest news of the friend, a change of address, perhaps; and--I
don't know who proposed it, but anyway he arranged to go with Sir Samuel
and Lady Turnour to the Palace of the Popes at ten o'clock. Her ladyship
was quite taken with him, and remarked to Sir Samuel that there was
nothing so fascinating as a French gentleman of the _haut monde_. Also
she pronounced his broken English '_sweet_.' She wondered if he was
married, and whether the friend in Cannes was a woman or a man. Little
did she know that her maid could have enlightened her! Their joining
forces here is, as my American friend Pamela would say, 'the _limit_.'"

"Don't worry. The Palace of the Popes won't see him to-day," said the
chauffeur. "He's gone. Got a telegram. Didn't even wait for letters, but
told the manager to forward anything that came for him, Poste Re