'Could you tell me the young lady's name?' Lavendale interrupted.
'I haven't heard it yet,' the man answered shortly. 'With regard to the other suites——'
Lavendale slipped a coin into his hand.
'Thank you,' he said, 'there is no other suite in which I am interested for the moment.'
He stepped out. Almost on the threshold he met Miss de Freyne, face to face.
'Are you coming,' he asked, raising his hat, 'to take possession of your new abode?'
She was entirely at her ease. She looked at him, however, a little curiously. It was as though she were trying to make an appreciative estimate of him in her mind.
'I suppose,' she observed, with a little sigh, 'that we are playing at cross-purposes. You are an American, are you not, Mr. Lavendale?'
'I am,' he answered.
'German-American?'