"I awoke once, and you were quite sound asleep."
"Oh, yes," she laughed. "But I wonder where we are?"
I looked forth, and was just able to read the name of a small station as we dashed through it at a glorious speed.
"We're nearing Turin," I responded. Then suddenly recollecting that in an hour or so I should be compelled to face old Keppel in the corridor, I resolved on a plan, which I immediately proceeded to put in force. "I don't feel at all well this morning," I added. "I think I shall go to sleep again."
"I've some smelling salts here," she said, looking at me with an expression of sympathy. And she took out a small silver-topped bottle from her little reticule.
I took it and sniffed it gladly, with a word of thanks. If I did not wish to meet Keppel, I should be compelled to remain in that stuffy little den for something like another twenty-four hours, if the travellers intended to go on to Paris. The prospect was certainly not inviting, for a single night in a Continental sleeping-car running over a badly-laid line gets on one's nerves terribly. Compelled, however, to feign illness, I turned in again, and at Turin, while my companion went forth and rejoined the man who had been my host, the conductor brought me the usual glass of hot coffee and a roll.
"I'm not well," I explained to the man who handed it to me. "Are you going through to Paris?"
"Si, signorina."
"Then please don't let me be disturbed, either at the frontier or anywhere else."
"Certainly—if the signorina has the keys of her baggage."