But on this pleasant June afternoon, in deference to her determined friend’s advice, she took off her pearls before starting out for Montmartre, leaving the case in the charge of M. Girard, the genial proprietor of the Hotel de l’Horloge.

CHAPTER II

With easy, leisurely steps, constantly stopping to look into the windows of the quaint shops they passed on the way, Sylvia Bailey and Anna Wolsky walked up the steep, the almost mountainous byways and narrow streets which lead to the top of Montmartre.

The whole population seemed to have poured itself out in the open air on this sunny day; even the shopkeepers had brought chairs out of their shops and sat on the pavement, gaily laughing and gossiping together in the eager way Parisians have.  As the two foreign ladies, both young, both in their very different fashion good-looking, walked past the sitting groups of neighbours—­men, women, and children would stop talking and stare intently at them, as is also a Parisian way.

At first Sylvia had disliked the manner in which she was stared at in Paris, and she had been much embarrassed as well as a little amused by the very frank remarks called forth in omnibuses as well as in the street by the brilliancy of her complexion and the bright beauty of her fair hair.  But now she was almost used to this odd form of homage, which came quite as often from women as from men.

“The Rue Jolie?” answered a cheerful-looking man in answer to a question.  “Why, it’s ever so much further up!” and he vaguely pointed skywards.

And it was much further up, close to the very top of the great hill!  In fact, it took the two ladies a long time to find it, for the Rue Jolie was the funniest, tiniest little street, perched high up on what might almost have been a mountain side.

As for No. 5, Rue Jolie, it was a queer miniature house more like a Swiss chalet than anything else, and surrounded by a gay, untidy little garden full of flowers, the kind of half-wild, shy, and yet hardy flowers that come up, year after year, without being tended or watered.

“Surely a fortune-teller can’t live here?” exclaimed Sylvia Bailey, remembering the stately, awe-inspiring rooms in which “Pharaoh” received his clients in Bond Street.

“Oh, yes, this is evidently the place!”

Anna Wolsky smiled good-humouredly; she had become extremely fond of the young Englishwoman; she delighted in Sylvia’s radiant prettiness, her kindly good-temper, and her eager pleasure in everything.

A large iron gate gave access to the courtyard which was so much larger than the house built round it.  But the gate was locked, and a pull at the rusty bell-wire produced no result.

They waited a while.  “She must have gone out,” said Sylvia, rather disappointed.

But Madame Wolsky, without speaking, again pulled at the rusty wire, and then one of the chalet windows was suddenly flung open from above, and a woman—­a dark, middle-aged Frenchwoman—­leant out.