“I think,” she answered, “I—I will not go till you do, Felix.”
“Why not, Fifine?”
“I don’t know. I would rather not.”
“You are nervous, little goose. These rough surroundings frighten you; and you are recalling terrible tales of things done to belated travellers in lonely inns. Are you not?”
She smiled faintly, but did not answer.
“Believe me,” I said; “you are safer here than you would be in the Hôtel Ritz, and far less likely to meet with impertinences. But, of course, if you feel so, I will come. You ought, it is very certain, to be in your bed.”
“It is a shame to victimise you so. I am very sorry, Felix. I have been trying to fight it down; but I can’t—everything is so wild and strange.”
“Of course. Poor child!”
I caught up the rücksack, went to the door, summoned the little solemn-eyed Provençale who had waited on us, and bade her conduct us to our rooms. She went before, carrying a lighted candle, up a flight of stairs as steep and narrow as a ladder, and ushered us at the top into a dim windy chamber, sparely littered with furniture, whence opened a couple of doors into two box-like little cubicles, or compartments—our bedrooms. Each contained a bed, a tiny washstand, one chair, and a minute chest of drawers with a scrap of looking-glass on it. They were dingy, the discoloured paper was peeling from the walls, the boards were bare; but, wonder of wonders, each boasted a single switch and electric light. They were more civilized in Paradou than we had opined, and I hoped that Fifine’s nerves would take comfort from that reassurance. I made her choose her room, and deposited in it, as was our custom, the rücksack, having first removed from it my own necessities. Then I bade her good-night, and told her to sleep in peace and security, seeing my own cubicle was contiguous, and the wall between no thicker than match-boxes.
“If you whisper, I shall hear you,” I said. “Call to me, if anything frightens you.”