“Why?”
“Come,” said she, “and I will show you.”
CHAPTER III
THEY left the ramparts and returned to the hotel. She left him in the hall for a moment, and then returned, and asked him to follow her.
He followed her to a door on the first floor landing; she opened it, and led him into a sitting-room, where in an armchair beside a blazing wood fire sat old Madame de Warens muffled up in a light shawl, with a novel open upon her lap, asleep.
It was no ordinary hotel sitting-room, this daintily upholstered room. It had, in fact, been entirely redecorated by a Parisian firm three years before, when the two women had decided to take up their quarters for good at the hotel.
The old lady by the fire awoke with a start when she heard them enter, welcomed Hellier with a little old-fashioned bow, and relapsed into her chair, whilst the girl, laying her gloves, which she had drawn off, upon the table, went to a door leading into another room, opened it, and motioned the young man to follow her.
He followed her into a bedroom. A woman’s bedroom. On the dressing-table lay silver hair brushes and all the odds and ends of a woman’s toilet, the little bed stood virginal-looking and white as snow, a row of tiny boots and shoes stood by one wall.
On a table, in a corner near the bed, stood something dismal and dark.