A gas lamp, burning feebly in a corner wine shop, lit up his exultant face for a flashing moment.
"You don't look well, Jack," Nancy said suddenly. "It was awfully hot in
Lyons this morning—"
"We stayed just a thought too long in that carpet warehouse," he said gaily,—"And then—and then that prayer carpet, which might have belonged to Ali Baba of Ispahan, has made me feel ill with envy ever since! But joy! Here we are at last!"
After emerging into a square of which one side was formed by an old Gothic church, they had engaged in a dark and narrow street the further end of which was bastioned by one of the flying buttresses of the church they had just passed.
The cab drew up with a jerk. "C'est ici, monsieur."
The man had drawn up before a broad oak porte cochère which, sunk far back into a thick wall, was now inhospitably shut.
"They go to bed betimes this side of the river!" exclaimed Dampier ruefully.
Nancy felt a little troubled. The hotel people knew they were coming, for
Jack had written from Marseilles: it was odd no one had sat up for them.
But their driver gave the wrought-iron bell-handle a mighty pull, and after what seemed to the two travellers a very long pause the great doors swung slowly back on their hinges, while a hearty voice called out, "C'est vous, Monsieur Gerald? C'est vous, mademoiselle?"
And Dampier shouted back in French, "It's Mr. and Mrs. Dampier. Surely you expect us? I wrote from Marseilles three days ago!"