“Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?”
“Yes, Madame, really!” answered Audrey firmly, without the least hesitation.
“How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much to make your acquaintance. I mean—to know you a little. You go perhaps in the afternoon? Could you not do me the great pleasure of coming to lunch with me? I inhabit the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient.”
Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not deny the persuasiveness of the invitation.
“Ah! Madame!” she said. “I know not at what hour we go. But even if it should be in the afternoon there is the packing—you know—in a word....”
“Listen,” Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more intimately towards her. “Be very, very kind. Come to see me to-night. Come in my car. I will see that you reach the Rue Delambre afterwards.”
“But Madame, we are at the Hôtel du Danube. I have my own car. You are very amiable.”
Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.
“So much the better,” she said, in a new tone. “The Hôtel du Danube is nearer still. But come in my car. Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours. Do not desolate me.”
“Does she know who I am?” thought Audrey, and then: “What do I care if she does?”