"I have called a cab," he announced surlily. "The patronne says there is no need for a voiture en galérie, because monsieur must not take his trunks."
The colour fell from their faces, and for a second they stood dumb and stock-still.
"Oh yes," stammered Kent at last, "we are leaving our heaviest trunks—we are going to send for them. But we need a voiture en galérie, all the same. I will speak to madame Garin."
He found her erect in the hall in her favourite attitude, her arms folded across her flat breast. Her face was as pale as his own, and her eyes were angry. He looked at her amazed.
"I don't understand your message, madame," he murmured. "I cannot have a voiture en galérie? But it is for the things you have allowed!"
"Not at all!" she exclaimed. "What do you suppose you will remove from my house? You will take 'what I have allowed'? But you need no voiture en galérie for that!"
"Pray speak quietly," he implored. "Look, there's the perambulator over there; and there are the box and bassinet! Of course they must go on the roof of a cab, we can't put them inside."
"Zut!" she answered; "I do not permit you to take such things. I will watch what you take. Fetch your things down!"
"Do you mean to say," muttered Kent with dry lips, "that at the last moment you refuse to let us take the child's bassinet?"
"I never consented to it. You lie!"