We were together in the night rapide from Berlin to Paris, and had just left the great echoing station of Cologne, with few stops between there and Paris. Day was breaking.
I had met Julie Granier under curious circumstances only a few hours before.
At Berlin, being known to the controller of the Wagon-lit Company, I was at once given a two-berth compartment in the long, dusty sleeping-car, those big carriages in which I so often spent days, and nights too, for the matter of that.
"M'sieur is for Paris?" asked the brown-uniformed conductor as I entered, and after flinging in my traps, I descended, went to the buffet and had a mazagran and cigarette until our departure.
I had not sat there more than five minutes when the conductor, a man with whom I had travelled a dozen times, put his head in at the door, and, seeing me, withdrew. Then, a few moments later, he entered with a tall, dark-haired, good-looking girl, who stood aside as he approached me, cap in hand.
"Excuse me, m'sieur, but a lady wishes to ask a great favour of you."
"Of me? What is it?" I inquired, rising.
Glancing at the tall figure in black, I saw that she was not more than twenty-two at the outside, and that she had the bearing and manner of a lady.
"Well, m'sieur, she will explain herself," the man said, whereupon the fair stranger approached bowing, and exclaimed:
"I trust m'sieur will pardon me for what I am about to ask," she said in French. "I know it is great presumption on my part, a total stranger, but the fact is that I am bound to get to Paris to-morrow. It is imperative—most imperative—that I should be there and keep an appointment. I find, however, that all the berths are taken, and that the only vacant one is in your compartment. I thought——" and she hesitated, with downcast eyes.