"Very well, let us all go to the hotel," she said, in a contemptuous voice.
I turned to Paul, and said:
"She wants to know if we should like her to come with us."
My friend's utter surprise restored my self-possession. He stammered:
"With us? Where to? What for? How?"
"I don't know, but she made this strange proposal to me in a most irritable voice. I told her that we were going to the hotel, and she said: 'Very well, let us all go there!' I suppose she is without a halfpenny. She certainly has a very strange way of making acquaintances."
Paul, who was very much excited, exclaimed:
"I am quite agreeable. Tell her that we will take her wherever she likes." Then, after a moment's hesitation, he said uneasily:
"We must know, however, with whom she wants to go—with you or with me?"
I turned to the Italian, who did not even seem to be listening to us, and said: