“At once?”
“This very evening.”
“Very good; this evening, then, by the Cenis. You won’t see the best part of the journey, but that doesn’t matter. How long would you like to stay in Paris?”
“As long as seems necessary to you,” she replied, with a little uncertain smile.
“Well, ten days or a fortnight. To which hotel would you like to go?”
She started at this question, and lowered her eyes.
“Is it all the same to you perhaps? If it is——”
“It isn’t all the same to me,” she murmured, with an evident control of her will. “I should like to go to a new hotel where you have never been.”
Her face grew pale for having once dared to tell her secret thought; then she blushed, and tears came to her eyes.
“If it is only that,” said Marco slowly, moved, “if it is only that, it is easy. We will go to the Elysèe Palace.”