“Rather, for the moment, let me ask the questions. Are you especially addicted to the two gentlemen who are with you?”
“Who is with you?”
“Oh. Nobody in particular. They are only time-killers. The fact is I have been so upset since that episode of the carriage, when I thought I saw my sister, that I cannot get the idea out of my head that she is here in this hotel. I was glad of any excuse for sitting around here for an hour or so.”
“Even though you sat in the café where there is not the slightest possibility that you will see her if she is here?” asked Nick.
“Yes; even so. Oh, I haven’t the faintest idea that I will see her again, you know.”
“Let me ask you, Danton, if, when you use the pronoun ‘her,’ you mean your sister, or the woman you saw in the cab and whom you thought was your sister?”
“You seem to be mighty well convinced that she was not Mercedes.”
“I am as positive as I can be without having established the truth of my statement.”
“Well, whether the woman I saw was Mercedes or somebody else, I cannot get it out of my head that she is here in this hotel.”