Their voices had a carrying quality which brought the words distinctly to our ears.  Suddenly the “rocker” was agitated, and the Boy’s feet came to the ground.  Nervously, he jerked the chair round so that its back was completely turned to the men at the other end of the room.  His eyes looked so big, and his face was so deeply stained with a quick rush of colour, that I feared he was ill.

“Anything wrong?” I asked, bending towards him, with my hand on his chair.

“Nothing.  I was only—­a little surprised to hear people talking, that’s all.  I thought we had the room to ourselves.”

His voice was a whisper, and I pitched mine to his in answering.  “So did I at first, but it seems two countrymen of yours are before us.  I wonder if they have had adventures to equal ours?  Probably we shall find out at dinner, for this looks the sort of hotel to herd its guests together at one long table.”

The Boy’s hand closed sharply on the arm of his chair.  “I’m too tired to dine in public,” said he, still in the same muffled voice.  “I shall have something to eat in my room—­if I ever get one.”

“If that’s your game,” said I, “I’ll play it with you.  We’ll ask them to give us a sitting-room of sorts, and we’ll dine there together like kings.”

“No, no.  You must go down.  I shall have my dinner in bed.  I’m worn out.  What are—­those men at the other end of the room like?”

“Like sketches from New York Life,” I replied.  “One is dark, the other fair, with a deep cleft in his chin, and a nose so straight it might have been ruled.  Better take a look at them.  Perhaps you may have met at home.”

“All the more reason for not looking,” said the Boy.  “Thank goodness, here comes the landlord.”

We could have had twenty rooms if we wished, for, said our host, throwing a glance across the salon, he had only two other guests besides ourselves.  They had come up by the funicular, meaning to walk next morning down to Chambery, but whether they could do so or not depended on the weather.  In any case, the hotel would close for the season in a few days now, and the funicular cease to run.  Fires should be laid in our rooms immediately, and we should be made comfortable, but as for our animals, unfortunately there were no stables attached to the hotel, no accommodation whatever for four-footed creatures.  They would have to go back to the chalet, where they and their drivers could be put up for the night.

“That will not do for Innocentina,” exclaimed the boy quickly.  In his eagerness he raised his voice slightly, and the two young men at the other end of the salon seemed waked suddenly to renewed interest in us and our affairs.  But the Boy’s tone fell again instantly.  “Innocentina must have a room at this hotel,” he went on.  “The chalet will be bad enough for Joseph.  For her it would be impossible.  Joseph won’t mind taking the donkeys down and caring for them this one night, for Innocentina’s sake.”