"You lie! You lie! Confess that you are lying. She was starved by you. She has died, and you are pretending that she has gone away."
She threw the waiter from her and ran up-stairs. Her own luggage was still in the room; of Queenie's nothing remained except a few pieces of pink tissue-paper trembling faintly in the draught. Sylvia rang the bell, but before any one could answer her summons she had fainted.
When she came to herself her first action—an action that seemed, when afterward she thought about it, to mark well the depths of her disillusionment—was to feel for her money lest she might have been robbed during her unconsciousness. The wad of notes had not shrunk; the waiter was looking at her with all the sympathy that could be bought for twenty francs; a blowsy chambermaid, dragged for the operation from a coal-cellar, to judge by her appearance, was sprinkling water over her.
"What was the man like?" she murmured.
The waiter bustled forward.
"A tall gentleman. He left no name. He said he brought a message. He paid a few little items on the bill that were not paid by madame. They took the train for Bucharest. Mademoiselle was looking ill."
Sylvia mustered all that will of hers, which lately had been tried hardly enough, to obliterate Queenie and everything that concerned Queenie from her consciousness. She fought down each superstitious reproach for not having kept her word by drinking the coffee in Bucharest: she drove forth from her mind every speculation about Queenie's future: she dried up every regret for any carelessness in the past.
"Clear away all this paper, please," she told the chambermaid; then she asked the waiter for the menu.
He dusted the grimy card and handed it to her.
"J'ai tellement faim," said Sylvia, "que je saurais manger même toi sans beurre."