Miss Julia Desmond had wired him from Suez that she would be in Paris next week—had astonishingly asked him to meet her there.
"Paris next Tuesday Gare St. Lazare 6:45. Come and see Betty via Dieppe," had been her odd message.
He had not meant to go—not next Tuesday. He was afraid of Miss Julia Desmond. He would rather have his Lizzie all to himself. But now—
He wrote a cablegram to Miss Julia Desmond: "Care Captain S.S. Urania, Brindisi: Will meet you in Paris." Then he thought that this might seem to the telegraph people not quite nice, so he changed it to: "Going to see Lizzie Tuesday."
The fates that had slept so long were indeed waking up and beginning to take notice of Betty. Destiny, like the most attractive of the porters at the Gare de Lyon, "s'occupait d'elle."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CONFESSIONAL.
The concierge sat at her window under the arch of the porte-cochère at 57 Boulevard Montparnasse. She sat gazing across its black shade to the sunny street. She was thinking. The last twenty-four hours had given food for thought.
The trams passed and repassed, people in carriages, people on foot—the usual crowd—not interesting.
But the open carriage suddenly drawn up at the other side of the broad pavement was interesting, very. For it contained the lady who had given the 100 francs, and had promised another fifty on the first of the month. She had never come with that fifty, and the concierge having given up all hope of seeing her again, had acted accordingly.