She held out her hand to him, still smiling. "I fear I shall never become accustomed to being pursued," she said, striving for command of her voice.
"It is dreadful to feel that some one is forever watching you from behind. I am glad it is you, however. You at least are not 'the secret eye that never sleeps'!" She gently withdrew her hand from his ardent clasp. "Mrs. Gaston told me that she had seen you. I feared that you might have gone on your way rejoicing."
"Rejoicing?" he cried. "Why do you say that?"
"After our experience in Paris, I should think that you had had enough of me and my faithful watchdogs."
"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "I shall never have enough of you," he went on, with sudden boldness. "As for the watch-dogs, they are not likely to bite us, so what is there to be afraid of?"
"Have you succeeded in evading the watchful eye of Mr. Totten's friend?" she enquired, sending an apprehensive glance along the porch.
"Completely," he declared. "I am quite alone in this hotel and, I believe, unsuspected. And you? Are you still being—"
"Sh! Who knows? I think we have thrown them off the track, but one cannot be sure. I raised a dreadful rumpus about it in Paris, and—well, they said they were sorry and advised me not to be worried, for the surveillance would cease at once. Still, I am quite sure that they lied to me."
"Then you are being followed."
She smiled again, and there was mischief in her eyes. "If so, I have led them a merry chase. We have been travelling for two days and nights, Mr. Schmidt, by train and motor, getting off at stations unexpectedly, hopping into trains going in any direction but the right one, sleeping in strange beds and doing all manner of queer things. And here we are at last. I am sure you must look upon me as a very silly, flibberty-gibbet creature."