This was a horrid hotel! The Poulains were hateful people! Jack had made a mistake—how could he have brought her to such a place? She would tell him when he came back that he must take her away now, at once, to some ordinary, nice hotel, where the people knew English, and where they treated their guests with ordinary civility.
And then there shot through Nancy Dampier a feeling of quick relief, for, walking across the courtyard, evidently on their way out, came a pleasant-looking elderly gentleman, accompanied by the girl whom Nancy had seen for a brief moment standing on the landing close to her bedroom door the night before.
These were English people? No, American of course! But that was quite as good, for they, thank heaven! spoke English. She could ask them to be her interpreters with those extraordinary Poulains. Jack wouldn't mind her doing that. Why, he might have left quite an important message for her!
She took a step forward, and the strangers stopped. The old gentleman—Nancy called him in her own mind an old gentleman, though Senator Burton was by no means old in his own estimation or in that of his contemporaries—smiled a very pleasant, genial smile.
Nancy Dampier made a charming vision as she stood under the arch of the porte cochère, her slender, blue-clad figure silhouetted against the dark background by the street outside, and the colour coming and going in her face.
"May I speak to you a moment?" she said shyly.
"Why certainly."
The American took off his hat, and stood looking down at her kindly. "My name is Burton, Senator Burton, at your service! What can I do for you?".
The simple little question brought back all Nancy's usual happy confidence.
How silly she had been just now to feel so distressed.
"I'm Mrs. Dampier, and I can't make the hotel people understand what I say," she explained. "I mean Monsieur and Madame Poulain—and the nephew—I think his name is Jules—though he is supposed to speak English, is so very stupid."