Fortunately my mistress and her husband were now ready to go up to their rooms, and we left Monsieur Charretier engaging quarters for himself and his chauffeur.  Evidently he was going to stop all night; but from his indifference to me I judged joyfully that he had not come to the hotel armed with information concerning my movements.  He might be searching for his lost love, but he didn’t know that she was at hand.

All my pleasure in the thought of sightseeing at Avignon was gone, like a broken bubble.  I shouldn’t dare to see any sights, lest I should be seen.  But stopping indoors wouldn’t mean safety.  Lady’s-maids can’t keep their rooms without questions being asked; and if I pretended to be ill, very likely Lady Turnour would discharge me on the spot, and leave me behind as if I were a cast-off glove.  Yet if I flitted about the corridors between my mistress’s room and mine, I might run up against the enemy at any minute.

I tried to mend the ravelled edges of my courage by reminding myself that Monsieur Charretier couldn’t pick me up in his motor-car, and run off with me against my will; but the argument wasn’t much of a stimulant.  To be sure, he couldn’t use violence, nor would he try; but if he found me here he would “have it out” with me, and he would tell things to Lady Turnour which would induce her to send me about my business with short shrift.

He could say that I’d run away from my relatives, who were also my guardians, and altogether he could make out a case against me which would look a dark brown, if not black.  Then, when Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel had washed their hands of me, and I was left in a strange hotel, practically without a sou—­unless the Turnours chose to be inconveniently generous, and packed me off with a ticket to Paris—­I should find it very difficult to escape from my Corn Plaster admirer.  This time there would be no kind Lady Kilmarny to whom I could appeal.

Between two evils, one chooses that which makes less fuss.  It wasn’t as intricate to risk facing Monsieur Charretier as it was to eat soap and be seized with convulsions; so I went about my business, waiting upon her ladyship as if I had not been in the throes of a mental earthquake.  She was not particularly cross, because the gentleman whose acquaintance I had thrust upon her might turn out to be Somebody, in which case my clumsiness would be a blessing in disguise; but if she had boxed my ears I should hardly have felt it.

Bent upon dazzling the eyes of potentates in the dining-room, and outshining possible princesses, the lady was very particular about her dress.  Although the big luggage had gone on by train to some town of more importance (in her eyes) than Avignon, she had made me keep out a couple of gowns rather better suited for a first night of opera in Paris than for dinner at the best of provincial hotels.  She chose the smarter of these toilettes, a black chiffon velvet embroidered with golden tiger-lilies, and filled