“Ah, M’sieur Ewart!” she cried, in her broken English, as I approached, “I am so glad you have come. I have been waiting ever so long. I want to go to Monte Carlo.”
“Then I’ll be delighted to take you,” I answered, raising my hat. “Mr. Bellingham has left already, and will be absent, I believe, a day or two. Meanwhile, if you will accept my escort, mademoiselle, I shall be only too willing to be yours to obey.”
“Bien! What a pretty speech!” she laughed. “I wonder whether you will say that to Madame.”
“Has Madame arrived?”
“She came this morning, just before noon. But,” she added, “look, here she comes.”
I glanced in the direction she indicated, and saw approaching us the short, queer figure of a little old woman in stiff dark-green silk skirts of the style a decade ago.
“Madame, here is M’sieur Ewart!” cried the pretty Pierrette, as the old lady advanced, and I bowed.
She proved to be about the ugliest specimen of the gentler sex that I had ever met. Her face was wrinkled and puckered, wizened and brown; her eyes were close set, and beyond her thin lips protruded three or four yellow fangs, rendering her perfectly hideous. Moreover, on her upper lip was quite a respectable moustache, while from her chin long white hairs straggled at intervals.
“Where is Mr. Bellingham?” she asked snappishly, in a shrill, rasping voice, like the sharpening of a file.
“He has left, and will be absent a few days, I believe. He has placed this car and myself at your disposal, and ordered me to present his regrets that pressing business calls him away.”