“Tell me,” said Mr. Joseph Mangles to the concierge, in a voice of deep depression which only added to the incongruity of his French, “what languages you speak.”

“Russian, French, Polish, German, English—­”

“That’ll do to go on with,” interrupted Mangles, in his own tongue.  “We’ll get along in English.  My name is Mangles.”

Whereupon the porter bowed low, as to one for whom first-floor rooms and a salon had been bespoken, and waved his hand towards the stairs, where stood a couple of waiters.

Of the party, Miss Cahere alone appeared cool and composed and neat.  She might, to judge from her bright eyes and delicate complexion, have slept all night in a comfortable bed.  Her hat and her hair had the appearance of having been arranged at leisure by a maid.  Miss Netty had on the surface a little manner of self-depreciating flurry which sometimes seemed to conceal a deep and abiding calm.  She had little worldly theories, too, which she often enunciated in her confidential manner; and one of these was that one should always, in all places and at all times, be neat and tidy, for no one knows whom one may meet.  And, be it noted in passing, there have been many successful human careers based upon this simple rule.

She followed the waiter up-stairs with that soft rustle of the dress which conveys even in the obtuse masculine mind a care for clothes and the habit of dealing with a good dressmaker.  At the head of the stairs she gave a little cry of surprise, for Paul Deulin was coming along the broad corridor towards her, swinging the key of his bedroom and nonchalantly humming an air from a recent comic opera.  He was, it appeared, as much at home here as in London or Paris or New York.

“Ah, mademoiselle!” he said, standing hat in hand before her, “who could have dreamed of such a pleasure—­here and at this moment—­in this sad town?”

“You seemed gay enough—­you were singing,” answered Miss Cahere.

“It was a sad little air, mademoiselle, and I was singing flat.  Perhaps you noticed it?”

“No, I never know when people are singing flat or not.  I have no ear for music.  I only know when I like to hear a person’s voice.  I have no accomplishments, you know,” said Netty, with a little humble drawing-in of the shoulders.

“Ah!” said Deulin, with a gesture which conveyed quite clearly his opinion that she had need of none.  And he turned to greet Miss Mangles and her brother.

Miss Mangles received him coldly.  Even the greatest of women is liable to feminine moments, and may know when she is not looking her best.  She shook hands, with her platform bow—­from the waist—­and passed on.

“Hallo!” said Joseph Mangles.  “Got here before us?  Thought you’d turn up.  Dismal place, eh?”

“You have just arrived, I suppose?” said Deulin.

“Oh, please don’t laugh at us!” broke in Netty.  “Of course you can see that.  You must know that we have just come out of a sleeping-car!”