"I have n't made a mistake, have I?" I asked, beginning to be anxious. "This is the hotel where the Princess is staying, is n't it?"
"She was staying here," the youth admitted. "But ⸺"
"Has she gone?"
"Not exactly."
"She must be either here or gone."
Again he regarded me with suspicion, as if he did not agree with my statement.
"Are you a relative of the Princess?" he inquired.
"No, I 'm engaged to be her companion."
"Oh! If that is all! But perhaps, in any case, it will be better to wait for the manager. He will be here presently. I do not like to take the responsibility."
"The responsibility of what?" I persisted, my heart beginning to feel like a patter of rain on a tin roof.
"Of telling you what has happened."
"If something has happened, I can't wait to hear it. I must know at once," I said, with visions of all sorts of horrid things: that the Princess had decided not to have a companion, and was going to disown me; that my cousin Madame Milvaine had somehow found out everything; that Monsieur Charretier had got on my track, and was here in advance waiting to pounce upon me.
"It is a thing which we do not want to have talked about in the hotel," the young man hesitated.
"I assure you I won't talk to any one. I don't know any one to talk to."
"It is very distressing, but the Princess Boriskoff died about four o'clock this morning, of heart failure."
