It was disagreeably dear that Madame Poulain thought him a foolish old man who had been caught by an adventuress's pretty face….
To their joint relief Monsieur Poulain came strolling into his wife's kitchen.
"I've been telling Monsieur le Sénateur," exclaimed Madame Poulain, "that we do not wish to have anything more to do with that young person who asserts that she arrived here with a man last night. Monsieur le Sénateur has too good a heart: he is being deceived."
The hotel-keeper looked awkwardly, deprecatingly, at his valued American client. "Paris is so full of queer people just now," he muttered. "They keep mostly to the other side of the river, to the Opera quarter, but we are troubled with them here too, during an Exhibition Year!"
"There is nothing at all queer about this poor young lady," said Senator Burton sharply—somehow the cruel insinuation roused him to chivalrous defence. But soon he changed his tone, "Now look here, my good friends"—he glanced from the husband to the wife—"surely you have both heard of people who have suddenly lost their memory, even to the knowledge of who they were and where they came from? Now I fear—I very much fear—that something of the kind has happened to this Mrs. Dampier! I am as sure that she is not consciously telling a lie as I am that you are telling me the truth. For one thing, I have ascertained that this lady's statement as to Mr. John Dampier having a studio in Paris, where he was expected this morning, is true. As to who she is herself that question can and will be soon set at rest. Meanwhile my daughter and myself"—and then he hesitated, for, well as he knew French, Senator Burton did not quite know how to convey his meaning, namely, that they, he and his daughter, meant to see her through. "My daughter and myself," he repeated firmly, "are going to do the best we can to help her."
Madame Poulain opened her lips—then she shut them tight again. She longed to tell "Monsieur le Sénateur" that in that case she and Poulain must have the regret of asking him to leave their hotel.
But she did not dare to do this.
Her husband broke in conciliatingly: "No doubt it is as Monsieur le Sénateur says," he observed; "the demoiselle is what we said she was only this morning—" and then he uttered the word which in French means so much and so little—the word "toquée."
There came another interruption. "Here come Mademoiselle Daisy and Monsieur
Gerald!" exclaimed Madame Poulain in a relieved tone.
The Senator's son and daughter had just emerged across the courtyard, from the vestibule where ended the escalier d'honneur. There was a look of keen, alert interest and curiosity on Gerald Burton's fine, intelligent face. He was talking eagerly to his sister, and Madame Poulain told herself that surely these two young people could not wish their stay in Paris to be complicated by this—this unfortunate business—for so the Frenchwoman in her own secret heart designated the mysterious affair which was causing her and her worthy husband so much unnecessary trouble.