I looked for some recognition between the two members of the same troupe, but my companion gave not the slightest sign that the Dog Woman existed. Jealous, of course, I said to myself. That's another professional trait.
The Ring Master now passed, raised his hat and entered his compartment. No sign of recognition; rather a cold, frigid stare, I thought.
The Sleeping-Car Manager next stepped through the car, lifted his hat when he caught sight of my companion, tiptoed deferentially until he reached the door, and went on to the next car. She acknowledged his homage with a slight bend of her beautiful head, rose from her seat, gave an order in Russian to her English maid who was standing in the door of her compartment, held out her hand to me with a frank good-night, and closed the door behind her.
I looked in on the bald-headed man. He was tucked away in the upper berth sound asleep.
When the next morning I moved up the long platform of the Gare du Nord in search of a cab, I stepped immediately behind the big Danish hound. He was walking along, his shoulders shaking as he walked, his tongue hanging from his mouth. The Woman had him by a leash, her maid following with the band-boxes, the feather boa, and the parasols. In the crowd behind me walked the bald-headed man, his arm, to my astonishment, through that of the King Master's. They both kotowed as they switched off to the baggage-room, the Ring Master bowing even lower than my roommate.
Then I became sensible of a line of lackeys in livery fringing the edge of the platform, and at their head a most important-looking individual with a decoration on the lapel of his coat. He was surrounded by half a dozen young men, some in brilliant uniforms. They were greeting with great formality my fair companion of the night before! The two Acrobats, the German Calculator, and the English bareback-rider maid stood on one side.
My thought was that it was all an advertising trick of the Circus people, arranged for spectacular effect to help the night's receipts.
While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of the Sleeping-Car Company joined me.
"I must thank you, sir," he said, "for making known to me the outrage committed by one of our porters on the Princess. She is travelling incognito, and I did not know she was on the train until she told me last night who she was. We get the best men we can, but we are constantly having trouble of that kind with our porters. The trick is to give every passenger a whole compartment, and then keep packing them together unless they pay something handsome to be let alone. I shall make an example of that fellow. He is a new one and didn't know me"—and he laughed.
"Do they call her the Princess?" I asked. They were certainly receiving her like one, I thought.