Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had already got out on the landing, when Rosamund and Madame Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle aloft, came down the stairs.  A few words of explanation, a little innocent blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by Madame Piriac, and an imperious affirmative by Rosamund—­and the two strangers to Paris found themselves in Madame Piriac’s waiting automobile on the way to their rooms!

In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish each other’s faces.  But Rosamund’s voice was audible in a monologue, and Miss Ingate trembled for Audrey and for the future.

“This is the most important political movement in the history of the world,” Rosamund was saying, not at all in a speechifying manner, but quite intimately and naturally.  “Everybody admits that, and that’s what makes it so extraordinarily interesting, and that is why we have had such magnificent help from women in the very highest positions who wouldn’t dream of touching ordinary politics.  It’s a marvellous thing to be in the movement, if we can only realise it.  Don’t you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?”

Audrey made no response.  The other two sat silent.  Miss Ingate thought: 

“What’s the girl going to do next?  Surely she could mumble something.”

The car curved and stopped.

“Here we are,” said Miss Ingate, delighted.  “And thank you so much.  I suppose all we have to do is just to push the bell and the door opens.  Now Audrey, dear.”

Audrey did not stir.

“Mon Dieu!” murmured Madame Piriac, “What has she, little one?”

Rosamund said stiffly and curtly: 

“She is asleep....  It is very late.  Four o’clock.”

Excellent as was Audrey’s excuse for her lapse, Rosamund was not at all pleased.  That slumber was one of Rosamund’s rare defeats.

CHAPTER XII

WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO

Audrey was in a white pique coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and pale blue hat—­and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes.  She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the studio.  She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she wore, visible and invisible, at that very convenient and immense shop, the Bon Marche, whose only drawback was that it was always full.  Everybody in the Quarter, except a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon Marche, because the Bon Marche was so comprehensive and so reliable.  If you desired a toothbrush, the Bon Marche not only supplied it, but delivered it in a 30-h.p. motor-van manned by two officials in uniform.  And if you desired a bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite stove, or a new wallpaper, the Bon Marche would never shake its head.