"Of the plague!" Arlee answered, wondering at his agitation. "Yes, your sister just told me. Is it really the plague?"
"So say those damned doctors—pardon, but they are such imbeciles!" He made an angry gesture with his clenched hand. His face was tense and excited. "They say so. And there is another sick ... Dieu, what a misfortune! Truly, there was illness about us, a little, but who thought——"
"I shall run back to my hotel," said Arlee lightly, "before I catch one of your germs."
"To the hotel—a thousand pardons, but that is the thing forbidden." The young man made a gesture, with empty palms outspread, eloquent of rebellion and despair. "Those doctors—those pig English—they have set a quarantine upon us!"
CHAPTER IV
A SORRY GUEST
"A quarantine?" said Arlee Beecher, in a perfectly flat little voice.
Again the young man exercised his power of gesture, his dark eyes seeming to plead his own helpless desire to mitigate his words.
"Truly a quarantine. It is tyranny, but what can one do? They will hear nothing—they set their guard and it is finished—bien simple. We are their prisoners."