"I shall be glad too," said the Senator slowly: how glad he would be neither of his children knew or guessed. "And now, Daisy, I hope you won't be long in getting ready to start for the station. I should be sorry indeed if the Hamworths' train came in before we reached there."
"Father! Surely you don't want me to leave Nancy this morning of all mornings? She ought not to be alone while the search is going on. She wanted to be actually present at it, didn't she, Gerald?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, but Daisy and I persuaded her that that was not necessary, that I would be there for her. It seems that Mr. Dampier had a very large portmanteau with him. She is sure that the Poulains have got it hidden away."
"She has told Gerald exactly what it is like," chimed in Daisy.
The Senator looked from one to the other: he felt both helpless and indignant. "The Hamworths are among the oldest friends we have in the world," he exclaimed. "Surely one of you will come with me? I'm not asking you to leave Mrs. Dampier for long, Daisy."
But Daisy shook her head decidedly. "I'd rather not, father—I don't feel as if I wanted to see the Hamworths at all just now. I'm sure that when you explain everything to them, they will understand."
Utterly discomfited and disappointed, and feeling for the first time really angry with poor Nancy Dampier, Senator Burton took his departure for the station, alone.
Perquisition?
To the French imagination there is something terrifying in the very word. And this justifiable terror is a national tradition. To thousands of honest folk a Perquisition was an ever present fear through the old Régime, and this fear became acute terror in the Revolution. Then a search warrant meant almost certainly subsequent arrest, imprisonment, and death.
Even nowadays every Frenchman is aware that at any moment, and sometimes on the most frivolous pretext, his house may be searched, his most private papers ransacked, and every member of his household submitted to a sharp, informal interrogation, while he stands helpless by, bearing the outrage with what grace he may.