My sense of humour did almost fail me just then.  But I caught hold of it by the tail just as it was darting out of the window, spitting and scratching like a cross cat.

It was remembering Monsieur Charretier that brought me to my bearings.  “I think your ladyship would be satisfied,” I said.  “And I make all my own dresses.”

“That one you’ve got on?—­which is most unsuitable for a maid, I may tell you, and I should never permit it.”

“This one I have on, also.”

“I thought maybe it had been a present.  Well, it’s something that you speak both English and French passably well.  I’ll try you on Lady Kilmarny’s recommendation, if you want to come to me for fifty francs a month.  I won’t give more to an amateur.”

I thought hard for a minute.  Lady Kilmarny had said it would not be many weeks before the Turnours went to England.  There, if Miss Paget (who seemed extremely nice by contrast and in retrospect) were still of the same mind, I might find a good home.  If not, she was as kind as she was queer, and would help me look further.  So I replied that I would accept the fifty francs, and would do my best to please her ladyship.

She did not express herself as gratified.  “You can begin work this evening,” she said.  “I was obliged to send away my last maid yesterday, and I’m lost without one.” (This was delightful from a “lidy” who had kept lodgers for years, with the aid perhaps of one smudgy-nosed “general"!) “But have you no more suitable clothes?  I can’t let a maid of mine go flaunting about, like a Mary-Jane-on-Sunday.”

I mentioned a couple of plain black dresses in my wardrobe, which might be made to answer if I were allowed a few hours’ time to work upon them, and didn’t add that they remained from my mourning for one dearly loved.

“You can have till six o’clock free,” said Lady Turnour.  “Then you must come back to lay out my things for dinner, and dress me.  What about your room?  Had the Princess taken something for you in the hotel?”

I evaded a direct answer by saying that I had a room; and was inwardly thankful that, evidently, the Turnours had not noticed me in the restaurant at luncheon, otherwise things might have been awkward.

“Very well, you can keep the same one, then,” went on her ladyship, “and let the hotel people know it’s Sir Samuel who pays for it.  To-morrow morning we leave, in our sixty-horse-power motor car.  We are making a tour before going back to England.  Sir Samuel’s stepson joins us in Paris or perhaps before and travels on with us.  He is staying now with some French people of very high title, who live in a chateau.  You will sit on the front seat with the chauffeur.”

This was a blow!  I hadn’t thought of the chauffeur.  “But,” thought I, “chauffeur or no chauffeur, it’s too late now for retreat.”

Talk of Prometheus with his vulture, the Spartan boy with his decently concealed wolf!  What of Lys d’Angely with an English chauffeur in her pocket?