“Where is the dining-room?” demanded Audrey.

“Madame,” said the dandy, shocked.  “We have no dining-room.  All meals are specially cooked to order and served in the private rooms.  We have the reputation....”  He opened his arms and bowed.

Good!  Good!  She would return with her friend in one hour or so.

“106 Rue Delambre,” she bade the chauffeur, after being followed to the pavement by the dandy and a suite.

“Rue de Londres?” said the chauffeur.

“No.  Rue Delambre.”

It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour, did not blench.  However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with which he repudiated it was complete.

“Winnie!” began Audrey in the studio, with assumed indifference.  Miss Ingate was at tea.

“Oh!  You are a swell.  Where you been?”

“Winnie!  What do you say to going and living on the right bank for a bit?”

“Well, well!” said Miss Ingate.  “So that’s it, is it?  I’ve been ready to go for a long time.  Of course you want to go first thing to-morrow morning.  I know you.”

“No, I don’t,” said Audrey.  “I want to go to-night.  Now!  Pack the trunks quick.  I’ve got the finest auto you ever saw waiting at the door.”

CHAPTER XVI

ROBES

On the second following Friday evening, Audrey’s suite of rooms at the Hotel du Danube glowed in every corner with pink-shaded electricity.  According to what Audrey had everywhere observed to be the French custom, there was in this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.  Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms.  The doors were open, and three women continually in a feverish elation passed to and fro.  Empire chairs and sofas were covered with rich garments of every colour and form and material, from the transparent blue silk matinee to the dark heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur.  The place was in fact very like the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on.  Sundry cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion.  None had hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey’s commands.  They had all been waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her.  All that district of Paris had been thus waiting.  The flat had been waiting, the automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors of every sort.  A word from her seemed to have released them from an enchantment.  For the most part they were strange people, these magical attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it, and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their unquestionable genius.  Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.