I was not quite sure yet which was up or down, and which way I had better grow, if at all.  There was, however, an attraction in a southerly direction:  letters were to be forwarded to me at Grenoble, and there would probably be one from Jack or Molly Winston, saying when and where they might be expected to come upon the scene with Mercedes.  Finding me stranded, they would doubtless take pity upon my forlornness, and offer me a lift in their car, down to the Riviera.  And to the Riviera I still felt strongly impelled to go, though I had no longer the Contessa for an excuse.  She had been engaged, in my little drama, for the part of “leading juvenile,” with the privilege of understudying the heroine.  But she had not shown an aptitude for either role, and having stepped down to that of first walking lady, she had minced off my stage altogether.  Now the cast was filled up without her, though strangely filled, since after the first act there had been no leading lady at all.  Nevertheless, having arranged a scene at Monte Carlo I could not persuade myself to give it up, though it would not be played, in any event, at the Contessa’s villa.

The Boy had vanished, and the sole word he had left was that I had better not count upon seeing him again.  But the more I thought of it, the less necessity I saw for taking him at that word.  He perhaps flattered himself that he had picked up all clues and carried them off with him in the wonderful bag.  But he had purposefully hinted that “something might happen at Monte Carlo,” and I hoped the something might mean that, after all, the Boy would materialise with his sister at the Hotel de Paris on the night after our arrival.  In any case, if the Princess were going to Monte Carlo, there would the Fairy Prince be also, and I did not see why I should not be there too, whether Molly and Jack tooled me down in their motor or not.

Fifteen minutes after Joseph had gone from my life to mingle his lot with Innocentina’s, I had my own plans definitely mapped out.  I would stop in Chambery overnight, to wait for the portmanteau with which I had kept up a speaking acquaintance in the larger centres of civilisation, during the tour, and next day I would go on to Grenoble by train, there to pick up letters.

The luggage duly arrived in the evening, so that there was no bar to the carrying out of my design; and, accordingly, after my coffee on the following morning, I conscientiously went out to see more of the town before taking the eleven-o’clock train.

It was only ten, and as my arrangements were all made, I had time for strolling—­too much to suit my mood.  The murmur of an automobile preparing to take flight attracted me from a distance, for it seemed that the voice had the cadence of a car I knew.  I hastened my steps, turned a corner, and there, in front of the Hotel de France’s rival, stood a fine motor, panting, quivering in eagerness to dart away.

It was a Mercedes, and if it were not Molly Winston’s wedding-present Mercedes, it was that Mercedes’ twin.  But there was a strange mushroom in it.