And yet even Senator Burton felt taken aback when he saw the undisguised annoyance, the keen irritation with which their return to the Hôtel Saint Ange was greeted by the woman to whom he had just given so good a certificate of character.
Madame Poulain was standing on the street side of the open porte cochère, as the carriage drove down the narrow street, and the American was astonished to see the change which came over her face.
An angry, vindictive, even a cruel expression swept over it, and instead of waiting to greet them as the carriage drew up at the door she turned abruptly away, and shuffled out of sight.
"Wait a moment," he said, as the fiacre drew up, "don't get out of the carriage yet, Mrs. Dampier—"
And meekly Nancy obeyed him.
The Senator hurried through into the courtyard. Much would he have given, and he was a careful man, to have seen the image he had formed of Jack Dampier standing on the sun-flecked flagstones. But the broad space stretching before him was empty, deserted; during the daylight hours of each day the Exhibition drew every one away much as a honey cask might have done a hive of bees.
Madame Poulain did not come out of her kitchen as was her usual hospitable wont when she heard footsteps echoing under the vaulted porte cochère, and so her American guest had to go across, and walk right into her special domain.
"We did not find the gentleman at his studio," he said shortly, "and I presume, Madame Poulain, that he has not yet been here?"
She shook her head sullenly, and then, with none of her usual suavity, exclaimed, "I do not think, Monsieur le Sénateur, that you should have brought that demoiselle back here!"
She gave him so odd—some would have said, so insolent a look, that the Senator realised for the first time what he was to realise yet further in connection with this strange business, namely, that the many who go through life refusing to act the part of good Samaritans have at any rate excellent reasons for their abstention.