But he soon shook off this feeling of misgiving, and as the curious tale he had to tell was being listened to, kindly and patiently, he felt glad indeed that he had at last found a fellow-countryman in whom to confide, and on whose advice he could rely.
But when Senator Burton had finished speaking, the American Consul shook his head. "I only wish we could help you!" he exclaimed. "But we can do nothing where a British subject is concerned. We've quite enough to do looking after those of our own people who disappear in Paris! Would you be surprised to learn, Mr. Senator, that four of our countrymen have completely vanished within the last two days?" And as Daisy uttered a little exclamation of incredulous dismay, "Don't feel so badly about it, my dear young lady, I quite expect all four of them to turn up again, after having given us and their friends a great deal of useless, expensive worry."
"What I really want," said the Senator earnestly, "is not your official assistance, but a word of practical advice. What is it this unfortunate young lady, Mrs. Dampier, ought to do? We've tried the Commissaire de Police of the quarter, and he's perfectly useless: in fact my son, who's seen him twice, doesn't believe a word he says."
The Consul gave what Senator Burton felt to be a very French shrug of the shoulders.
"That don't surprise me! As regards the lower branch of the service the police here is very understaffed. The only thing for you to do is to take this poor lady to the British Consulate. They are driven to death there, just as we are here, and they'll naturally snatch at any excuse to avoid an extra job. But of course if this Mrs. Dampier is, as you say, a British subject—well, they're bound to do something for her. But you may believe me when I say, Mr. Senator, that there's probably nothing really mysterious about the case. You may find this Mr. Dampier at the hotel when you return there. It may interest you to learn"—he hesitated, and glanced at his young countrywoman—"that among our countrymen who vanish, I mean in a temporary way, there are more married men than bachelors."
And with that enigmatic pronouncement the genial Consul courteously and smilingly dismissed Senator Burton and his daughter.
The same afternoon saw the Senator and Mrs. Dampier on their way to the
British Consulate.
The day before Nancy had been unwilling to leave the hotel for even the shortest space of time, now she seemed sunk into apathetic despair—and yet, as they drove along together, the Senator still doubted, still wondered in the depths of his heart, whether the lovely young woman now sitting silent by his side, was not making a fool of him, as she had certainly done of his two children.
He caught himself again and again thinking of her as "Nancy;" already his daughter and she were on Christian-name terms with one another; and as for Gerald, he had put everything else aside to devote himself entirely to solving the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance.
At last they reached the British Consulate, and the American could not help feeling a thrill of pride as he mentally compared the Office where he had been that morning and that which represented, in this shabby side street, the commercial might and weight of the British Empire.