“But how, monsieur, are you going to do it?” asked Peggy.
“Madame,” said he, “in spite of the war, the telegraphic, telephonic, and municipal systems of France work in perfect order—to say nothing of that of the police. Frélus, I think, is the name of the place she started from?”
At eight o’clock in the evening, after her lonely dinner in the great hotel, the polite official called again. She met him in the lounge.
“Madame,” said he, “I have the pleasure to inform you that Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière, late of Frélus, is living in Paris at 743bis Boulevard Port Royal, and spends all her days at the succursale of the French Red Cross in the Rue Vaugirard.”
“Have you seen her and told her?”
“No, madame, that did not come within my instructions.”
“I am infinitely grateful to you,” said Peggy.
“Il n’y a pas de quoi, madame. I perform the tasks assigned to me and am only too happy, in this case, to have been successful.”
“But, monsieur,” said Peggy, feeling desperately lonely in Paris, and pathetically eager to talk to a human being, even in her rusty Vévey school French, “haven’t you wondered why I’ve been so anxious to find this young lady?”
“If we began to wonder,” he replied with a laugh, “at the things which happen during the war, we should be so bewildered that we shouldn’t be able to carry on our work. Madame,” said he, handing her his card, “if you should have further need of me in the matter, I am always at your service.”