He gave me neither a
word nor a gesture. I was completely dumfounded at this ultra-Britannic
rudeness, while Major Noltitz could not restrain a loud outburst of
laughter.
Ah! If I should see this gentleman again. But never did I see again Sir
Francis Trevellyan of Trevellyan Hall, Trevellyanshire.
Half an hour afterwards we are installed at the Hotel of _Ten Thousand
Dreams_. There we are served with a dinner in Chinese style. The repast
being over--towards the second watch--we lay ourselves on beds that are
too narrow in rooms with little comfort, and sleep not the sleep of the
just, but the sleep of the exhausted--and that is just as good.
I did not wake before ten o'clock, and I might have slept all the
morning if the thought had not occurred to me that I had a duty to
fulfil. And what a duty! To call in the Avenue Cha Coua before the
delivery of the unhappy case to Mademoiselle Zinca Klork.
I arise. Ah! If Kinko had not succumbed, I should have returned to the
railway station--I should have assisted, as I had promised, in the
unloading of the precious package. I would have watched it on to the
cart, and I would have accompanied it to the Avenue Cha Coua, I would
even have helped in carrying him up to Mademoiselle Zinca Klork! And
what a double explosion of joy there would have been when Kinko jumped
through the panel to fall into the arms of the fair Roumanian!
But no! When the box arrives it will be empty--empty as a heart from
which all the blood has escaped.
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