‘Go to Berlin,’ she said. ‘I see that you must do that; you have no alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your friends.’
He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was alone, she kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again. Now, thinking the matter out in the calmness of solitude, all seemed strange, unreal, uncertain to her. Were conspiracies actually possible nowadays? Did queer things actually happen in Europe? And did they actually happen in London hotels? She dined with her father that night.
‘I hear Prince Aribert has left,’ said Theodore Racksole.
‘Yes,’ she assented. She said not a word about their interview.
Chapter Eight ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE BARONESS
ON the following morning, just before lunch, a lady, accompanied by a maid and a considerable quantity of luggage, came to the Grand Babylon Hôtel. She was a plump, little old lady, with white hair and an old-fashioned bonnet, and she had a quaint, simple smile of surprise at everything in general.
Nevertheless, she gave the impression of belonging to some aristocracy, though not the English aristocracy. Her tone to her maid, whom she addressed in broken English—the girl being apparently English—was distinctly insolent, with the calm, unconscious insolence peculiar to a certain type of Continental nobility. The name on the lady’s card ran thus: ‘Baroness Zerlinski’. She desired rooms on the third floor. It happened that Nella was in the bureau.
‘On the third floor, madam?’ questioned Nella, in her best clerkly manner.
‘I did say on de tird floor,’ said the plump little old lady.