"I would ask your permission to sit down," Bernadine remarked, "but I fear to intrude. You are afraid, perhaps, that your husband may return?"
She shook her head.
"It will be better that you do not stay," she declared. "For a moment or two he is engaged. He has an appointment in his room with a gentleman, but one never knows how long he may be."
"You have friends in London, then?" Bernadine remarked thoughtfully.
"Of my husband's affairs," the woman said, "there is no one so ignorant as I. Yet since we left our own country this is the first time I have known him willingly speak to a soul."
"Your own country!" Bernadine repeated softly. "That was Russia, of course? Your husband's nationality is very apparent."
The woman looked annoyed with herself. She remained silent.
"May I not hope," Bernadine begged, "that you will give me the pleasure of meeting you again?"
She hesitated for a moment.
"He does not leave me," she replied. "I am not alone for five minutes during the day."