"Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed boat. Foreigners are such wretched sailors."

He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.

"A bit damp," she repeated. "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."

"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered. "This side is English water, therefore it is all right."

A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.

"Look at those poor women," she said.

Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.

"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy. "Ain't it awful!

And they're too miserable to care. You poor thing," she said, leaning forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so you're more comfortable?"

The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.

"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully. "We're doing quite well. It will soon be over."

Hephzy shook her head.

"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered. "I declare! if it wasn't off already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve we hear so much about--but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on the burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all....

What is it, Hosy?"

I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his way forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar was turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.

We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she said, that we really were in a foreign country.

"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said. "And the Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this--THIS is foreign enough, goodness knows! Let go of my arm!" to the smiling, gesticulating porter who was proffering his services. "DON'T wave your hands like that; you make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as well if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off."

We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.

We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.

Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed." "There's enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you couldn't stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my life."

We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no longer profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train at Paris.

In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons, Hephzy talked incessantly.

"Paris!" she said, over and over again. "Paris! where they had the Three Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and--and everything.

Paris! And I'm in it!"

At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.

Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with her and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real reason for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.

"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said. "I think I may find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at Lucerne or Interlaken."

Hephzy stared at me.

"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known you had such an idea as that in your head I--"

"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted. "I know that; that's why I didn't tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me here. We will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will join you. You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."

In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was nearly midnight before she gave in.

"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said, "you'll find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better understand it. And now," rising from her chair, "I'm goin' to see about the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and forget to change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too well. Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years and DON'T know?"

The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:

"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case you want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in Switzerland.

And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're always good, but, from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and--good-by. Good-by.

In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be that, or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one comfort.

If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear."

The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone in Paris as I had planned to be. And now--and now to find where a girl sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.

CHAPTER XV

In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches

And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of them in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days.

I must join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble.

And how was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?

Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The chances of success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the mood to take the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds were higher still. My plan--if it could be called a plan--was first of all to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I did, and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered me. There were churches enough--there were far too many. Cathedrals and chapels and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant. But there was no church calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and settled myself for further reflection.

The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all.

It was very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more than I? It was possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on the steamer, and I believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course he might not be in Paris now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not believe it, however. I believed he had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I. There was a possible chance. I might, if the other means proved profitless, discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him. He might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.

It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly regardless of scruples. I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see her and speak with her again.

Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker, I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last, I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew everything, spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of unreasonable questions.

The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least that is what I had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares, took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.

Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I had finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches in Paris--yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were, for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name of the church?

"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.

Louis raised his shoulders. "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but there is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but it is so."

He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of a friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he spoke in English, very good English.

"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on. "Possibly I may discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty."

In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de Mars at four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was unusually good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It would give him pleasure to book a place for me.