The porter understood, and looked sulky. "I tell ze troot," he persisted. "Ze gentlemens no believe, zay ask some ozzer."
They took him at his word, and walked past the Arab into the hotel. A few Frenchmen and Spaniards of inferior type were in the hall, and at the back, near a stairway made of the cheapest marble, was a window labelled "Bureau." Behind this window, in a cagelike room, sat the proprietor at a desk, adding up figures in a large book. He was very fat, and his chins went all the way round his neck in grooves, as if his thick throat might pull out like an accordion. There was something curiously exotic about him, as there is in persons of mixed races; an olive pallor of skin, an oiliness of black hair, and a jetty brightness of eye under heavy lids.
This time it was Stephen who asked for Miss Ray; but he was given the same answer. She had gone out.
"You are sure?"
"Mais, oui, monsieur."
"Has she been gone long?" Stephen persisted, feeling perplexed and irritated, as if something underhand were going on.
"Of that I cannot tell," returned the hotel proprietor, still in guttural French. "She left word she would not be at the dinner."
"Did she say when she would be back?"
"No, monsieur. She did not say."
"Perhaps the American Consul's family took pity on her, and invited her to dine with them," suggested Nevill.