“Sometimes they are.”
“Yet I think the General should have come, and young Lablache from the Embassy. He promised me. A ball-room promise, of course;” and she laughed merrily and threw her hands up.
“Lablache? Do I know him?”
“Know him? Not by name. He is that dark handsome man who was so nice about the flowers, and at whom somebody I know, a stupid, jealous somebody, looked daggers;” and she made a pretty grimace at me.
“Oh, that fellow!” I growled.
“He is coming to Paris next month, and has promised to call;” and then we plunged into a conversation about a wholly imaginary set of people, in the course of which Helga managed most adroitly to include a purely fictional history of herself, with side-lights upon our relationship as an engaged couple.
Having done that, she settled herself in her corner, said she was going to sleep, and advised me to do the same; and as I was putting the rugs about her, she managed to whisper a sentence which gave me food for thought all through the night.
“The woman’s a spy. Be careful.”
As she said it she laughed gaily, and in a few minutes closed her eyes and appeared to sleep soundly.
But there was no sleep for me. I forced myself to keep my eyes closed, a continuous effort that was infinitely taxing; and during the long, weary hours, I think I must have pretty well exhausted in thought all the possible dangers that might result from the presence of so dangerous a fellow-traveller.