Curiosity is often an inexplicable thing, even to the curious, and certainly Dolores would have been hard put to it to explain why she felt any curiosity about the new arrival and the man who had so patiently awaited him. But she did feel curious, and mingled with her curiosity was a vague sense of something like compassion, if not exactly of pity, for she knew very well that at that moment the hotel was very full, and that the new-comer would have to put up with rather uncomfortable quarters if he were lucky enough to get any at all. The sense of curiosity was, however, stronger than her sense of compassion, and she ran rapidly down stairs by her own private stair and slipped into the little room at the back of the hotel office, where either her father or her mother was generally to be found. At this particular moment, as it happened, neither her father nor mother was in the little room. The door communicating with the office stood slightly ajar, and Dolores, standing by it, could see into the office and hear all that passed without being seen.
The blonde-bearded stranger came up to the office smiling confidently. He had still his portfolio under his arm, but his smooth-shaven friend had relieved him of the two bundles of books, and stood slightly apart while the rest of the new-comer's belongings were being piled into a huge mound of impedimenta in the hall. Dolores expected the confident smile of the blonde man to disappear rapidly from his face. But it did not disappear. He said something to the office clerk which Dolores could not catch; the clerk immediately nodded, rang for a page-boy, collected sundry keys from their hooks, and handed them to the page-boy, who immediately made off in the direction of the lift, heralding the blonde-bearded stranger, with his smooth-shaven friend still in attendance, while a squad of porters descended upon the luggage and wafted it away with the rapidity of Afrite magicians.
Dolores could not restrain her curiosity. She opened the door wider and called to the clerk, 'Mr. Wilkins.'
Mr. Wilkins looked round. He was a tall, alert, sharp-looking young man, whose only weakness in life was a hopeless attachment to Miss Paulo.
'Yes, Miss Paulo.'
'Who was the gentleman who just arrived, Mr. Wilkins?'
Mr. Wilkins seemed a little surprised at the interest Miss Paulo displayed in the arrival of a stranger. But he made the most of the occasion. He was glad to have anything to tell which could possibly interest her.
'That,' said Mr. Wilkins with a certain pride, 'is quite a distinguished person in his way. He is Professor Wilberforce P. Flick, President of the Denver and Sacramento Folk-Lore Societies. He has been travelling on the Continent for some time past for the benefit of the societies, and has now arrived in London for the purpose of making acquaintance with the members of the leading lights of folk-lore in this country.'
Dolores laughed. 'Did he tell you all that just now?' she asked.
'Oh, no,' the young man replied, 'Oh, no, Miss Paulo. All that valuable information I gained largely from a letter from the distinguished gentleman himself from Paris last week, and partially also from the spontaneous statements of his friend Mr. Andrew J. Copping, of Omaha, who is now in London, and who came here to see if his friend's rooms were duly reserved.'