“Don’t they look French!” said Miss Ingate.

Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart.  She was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate; and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station intimidated her.  The porteur, who had gone away to collect their neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the official who had resumed his place behind the trunks.  He was certainly a fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity in his eye.

Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate’s trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the smallest of her own trunks.  The act was a deliberate exploitation of widowhood.  The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms, and told the porteur to open the small trunk.

“I told you they would,” said Miss Ingate negligently.

Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she had conquered the customs official—­a foreigner and a stranger.  She wanted to be alone and to think.

Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish voice behind her: 

“Now, you must be Miss Ingate!”

“I am,” Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.

The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a bodyguard.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE IN PARIS

Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to dissipate all the affrighting menace of the city beyond the station.  Miss Thompkins had fluffy red hair, with the freckles which too often accompany red hair, and was addressed as Tommy.  Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair, with warm, loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick.  The age of either might have been anything from twenty-four to forty.  The one came from Wyoming, the other from Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close friends.  They had driven up to the terminus before going to a fancy-dress ball to be given that night in the studio of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter and a delightful man.  They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the previous evening on the terrace of the Cafe de Versailles, and Monsieur had said, in response to their suggestion, that he would be enchanted and too much honoured if they would bring their English friends to his little “leaping”—­that was, hop.

Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London.  It was Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms, and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady, who was a sweet creature.