Flip looked despairingly at her father but all he did was to grin encouragingly. She followed Erna reluctantly.
At the head of the stairs Erna set down the suitcase and undid her barette, yanking her short hair back tightly from her face. "Sprechen sie deutsch?" she asked Flip.
Flip knew just enough German to answer, "Nein."
"Parlez vous Français?" Erna asked, picking up the suitcase again.
To this Flip was able to answer "Oui."
"Well, that's something at any rate," Erna told her in French, climbing another flight of marble stairs. "After Prayers tonight we aren't supposed to speak anything but French. Some of the girls don't speak any French when they first come and I can tell you they have an awful time. I ought to know because I didn't speak any French when I came last year. What did Tulip say your name was?"
"Philippa Hunter."
"What are you? English?"
"No. American."
Erna turned down a corridor, pushed open a white door marked 33, and set the suitcase inside. Flip looked around a sunny room with flowered wall-paper and four brass beds. Four white bureaus beside the beds and four white chairs at the feet completed the furnishings. Wide French windows opened onto a balcony from which Flip could see the promised view of the lake and the mountains. Each chair had a number painted on it in small blue letters. Erna picked up the suitcase again and dumped it down on the chair marked 97.