I explained the direction we were to follow.
"Horrible countenance he had," she remarked, as we pursued our way.
"O, dreadful," I assented.
"Nobody knows where he may send us," she continued.
Sure enough! In our alarm we stopped short in the street, and stared at each other with horrified countenances.
"I have heard—" I began.
"Yes; and so have I," she went on, shaking her head, and expressing by that gesture most fearful possibilities.
A bright thought seized me. "He told us to turn to the right; we will turn to the left!" And with that happy, womanly instinct, said to transcend all judgment, we did. Strange as it may appear, though we went on for a long half hour, no "Trois Rois" gladdened our eyes.
Suddenly Mrs. K. struck an attitude. "A fine appearance we shall present," said she; "two lone women, dusty and heated, our arms full of baggage, straggling up to a hotel two mortal hours after the arrival of the train. We'll take a carriage."
To me this inglorious advent was so distant in prospect that it held no terrors, nothing of mortification even. "Les Trois Rois" had become a myth, an idea towards which we vainly struggled.