And the other answered soothingly, "Yes, indeed I do know how you must feel. But I expect it will be all right soon. After all, Gerald said—"—she hesitated a moment, and then went on more firmly—"Gerald said that probably Mr. Dampier met with quite a slight accident, and that might be the reason why the tiresome Commissaire de Police knew nothing about it."
"But if it was a slight accident," Nancy objected quickly, "Jack would have let me know at once! You don't know my husband: he would move heaven and earth to save me a minute's anxiety or trouble."
"I am sure of that. But Gerald says that if Mr. Dampier did try and arrange for you to be sent a message at once, the message miscarried—"
It was an hour later. The Senator had listened in silence while his young English guest had expressed in faltering, but seemingly very sincere, tones, her gratitude for his projected visit to the American Embassy. Nay, she had done more. Very earnestly Mrs. Dampier had begged Senator Burton and his daughter not to give themselves more trouble over her affairs than was absolutely necessary.
And her youth, her beauty, her expression of pitiful distress had touched the Senator, though it had not shaken his belief in the Poulains' story. He did however assure her, very kindly and courteously, that he grudged no time spent in her service.
And then, while Gerald Burton accompanied his father and his sister downstairs, Nancy Dampier was left alone for a few minutes with her own troubled and bewildered thoughts.
She walked restlessly over to one of the high windows of the sitting-room, and looked down into the shady garden below. Then her eyes wandered over the picturesque grey and red roofs of the old Paris Jack Dampier loved so well.
Somehow the cheerful, bright beauty of this June morning disturbed and even angered poor Nancy. She remembered with distaste, even with painful wonder, the sensations of pleasure, of amusement, of admiration with which she had first come through into this formal, harmoniously furnished salon, which was so unlike any hotel sitting-room she had ever seen before.
But that had been yesterday morning—infinitely long ago.
Now, each of the First Empire pieces of furniture seemed burnt into her brain: and the human faces of the dull gold sphinxes which jutted from each of the corners of the long, low settee seemed to grin at her maliciously.