"Exactly what you ve told me. She's not the kind to lie to. The neighbours can think that you are a missionary who has come home ill—a relative of hers, or something of the sort. Sœur Anne Marie was once a surgical nurse in one of the hospitals, and I'd rather trust myself to her than to most surgeons."
So at last I agreed—and mighty thankfully, too, you can bet; and I managed to get out of my sporty knickerbockers and into the taxi. Rosalie made a bundle of the tweeds and promised to go to the little hotel the next day where I had been stopping and square up for me and fetch away my things. Then off we went, going in through Suresnes and the Bois, down the Champs-Elysées and across the Alexandre Trois Bridge, finally to pull up at the entrance of an impasse on the Rue Vaugirard.
"It's not much to look at from the outside," said Rosalie as I got out, "but it's not bad."
She nodded and smiled and said a few words to some of the people sitting outside their little shops, and they smiled and nodded back. It was plain enough that Rosalie was a local favourite and quite a celebrity in her quarter. I noticed, too, that the manner of a couple of women she stopped to speak to was mighty respectful. There was none of the free-and-easy cheek of the cabmen.
My arm and shoulder were quite numb now and felt as if turning to stone, and I guess I was pretty white and pinched-looking. Rosalie led the way, and I followed her into the impasse, then across a little paved court and up some dark, dilapidated stairs; but the house was clean enough, and the peo-
