She appeared to be convinced, but still a little bewildered. She was silent.
"Don't you think," I said, after a short pause, "that it is almost my turn now to ask a few questions?"
She seemed surprised.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Tell me, you are not English," I said, "and you are not French. Yet you speak English so well."
She smiled.
"My father was a Frenchman and my mother a Spaniard," she answered. "I was born in South America, but I came to Europe when very young, and have lived in France always. My people"—she looked towards the sleeping man as though to include him—"are all coffee planters."
"You are going to stay long in London?" I asked.
"My uncle sells his year's crops there," she answered. "When he has finished his business we move on."
"Will you tell me, then," I asked, "why you, too, were at the Café des Deux Épingles? You admit that it is the resort of people of mysterious habits. What place had you there?"