"Entrez, mademoiselle. He will see you."
The red-haired lieutenant with pince-nez was upon his feet looking at her curiously as she entered the adjoining room.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. There is something wrong with the billet that I found you yesterday?"
She looked at him. In his pale-blue eyes there was a beam; in his creased mouth there was an upward curve. The story of legitimate complaint that she had prepared drooped in her mind; she looked at him a little longer, hesitated, then, risking everything:
"Monsieur, there is a stuffed owl in the room."
He did not wince. "Take it out, mademoiselle."
"H'm, yes. I cannot see heaven except through orange glass."
"Open the window."
"It is fixed."
Then he failed her; he was a busy, sensible man.