"Believe it if you will, my dear friend, but we lawyers know most things, and I know that what I say is true. When my little Hélène goes to school she shall not go to such. Meanwhile, I am content to keep her at home."
"So am I," murmured Madame Dubois. "Schools are such vulgar places, are they not?"
But Barbara, to whom the remark was addressed, was too much interested in this last piece of news to do more than answer shortly. For if what the lawyer said were true—and he did not seem a man likely to make mistakes—then Alice Meynell might really have sufficient cause to be miserable, and Barbara wondered when she would see her again, which was to be sooner than she expected.
CHAPTER XI.
BARBARA TURNS PLOTTER.
The day after her expedition to Dol, Barbara saw Alice Meynell again, and in rather a strange meeting-place—namely, the public bath-house. The house in which the Loirés lived was an old-fashioned one, and had no bath, and at first Barbara had looked with horror upon the bath-house. She had become more reconciled to it of late, and, as it was the only means of obtaining a hot bath, had tried to make the best of it. It was a funny little place, entered by a narrow passage, at one end of which there was a booking-office, and a swing door, where you could buy a "season-ticket," or pay for each visit separately.
On one side of the passage there were rows of little bathrooms, containing what Barbara thought the narrowest most uncomfortable baths imaginable. A boy in felt slippers ran up and down, turning on the water, and a woman sat working at a little table at one end—"to see you did not steal the towels," Barbara declared. It was here she met Alice Meynell, under the care of an old attendant, whom the girl said she knew was a spy sent to report everything she said or did.
"Mademoiselle, who came with me to call the other day, has taken a great dislike to you," Alice whispered hurriedly in passing; "and when I asked if I might go to see you again, said, 'No, it was such a pity to talk English when I was here to learn French.' I am quite determined to run away."
The boy announced that the bath was ready, and the old attendant, putting her watch on the table, said—