"At four o'clock! What shall we do meanwhile?" asked Joan innocently.
Felix winked brazenly at the picture. "Delgratz is a picturesque city," he said. "Let us inspect it."
"You do not think Alec will learn of our presence and visit us before going to the University?"
"Very improbable. He is out in the country, watching artillery at field exercise. Of course, he knows nothing about artillery; but Kings have to pretend a good deal. Now, if I were a young lady who had been traveling for a day and two nights, especially if I had slept badly during the second night, I should stroll about the principal streets till I was tired, eat a light luncheon, sleep for an hour afterward, dress myself in some muslin confection, and be ready to dine with the King at seven-thirty or thereabouts."
"I shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Joan, blushing behind her motor veil.
"Very well. Behold in me your slave of the lamp. What shall we do?"
"I don't object to looking at the shops and the people for a little while," she admitted, and this time Felix did not wink at the picture, but contented himself with an expressive raising of his bushy eyebrows.
The program he mapped out was adhered to faithfully. Joan was really tired, and the midday heat of Delgratz was not only novel but highly disagreeable. She retired to her room at one o'clock, and Felix heard her telling her maid to call her at three.
The elderly Frenchwoman whom Joan employed as a compendium of all the domestic virtues was scandalized by the pestering she had already undergone at the hands of the hotel employees. They wanted to know everything about her mistress as soon as they were told that she was not Poluski's wife, and the staid Pauline was at her wit's end to parry the questions showered on her in bad French. Felix advised her not to understand when spoken to, and relieved her manifest distress by the statement that the hotel would see the last of them in a day or two.