bedrooms, and then giving the hotel servant a handsome tip to ensure that he should be put on the same floor as herself. She could almost hear his not disagreeable male voice that vibrated a little from the chest and made her vibrate.
Perowne was grumbling on. Sylvia was callous because she had forgotten the name of the Brittany hamlet in which they had spent three blissful weeks together, though she had left it so suddenly that all her outfit remained in the hotel.
"Well, it wasn't any kind of a beanfeast for me," Sylvia went on, when she again gave him her attention.
"Good heavens! . . . Do you think it would be any kind of a beanfeast with you, pour tout potage? Why should I remember the name of the hateful place?"
Perowne said:
"Yssingueux-les-Pervenches, such a pretty name," reproachfully.
"It's no good," Sylvia answered, "your trying to awaken sentimental memories in me. You will have to make me forget what you were like if you want to carry on with me. . . . I'm stopping here and listening to your corncrake of a voice because I want to wait until Christopher goes out of the hotel . . . Then I am going to my room to tidy up for Lady Sachse's party and you will sit here and wait for me."
"I'm not," Perowne said, "going to Lady Sachse's. Why, he is going to be one of the principal witnesses to sign the marriage contract. And Old Campion and all the rest of the staff are going to be there. . . . You don't catch me. . . . An unexpected prior engagement is my line. No fear."
"You'll come with me, my little man," Sylvia said, "if you ever want to bask in my smile again. . . .
