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106 hum of twentieth-century life. I resented the change, for one expects nothing, wants nothing, modern in Avignon; but in a moment or two we had left the bright cafés and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ages. Anything, it seemed, might happen in the queer, shadowed streets of tall old houses with mysterious doorways, through which the Aigle cautiously threaded, like a glittering crochet needle practising a new stitch. Then, in the quiet place, asleep and dreaming of stirring deeds it once had seen, we stopped before a dignified building more like some old ducal family mansion than a hotel.

But it was a hotel, and we were to stop the night in it, leaving all sightseeing for the next morning. Lady Turnour was tired. She had done too much already for one day—with a reproachful glance at the chauffeur whom she thus made responsible for her prostration. Nothing would induce her to go out again that evening, and she thought that she would dine in her own sitting-room. She did n't like old places, or old hotels, but she supposed she would have to make the best of this one. She was a woman who never complained, unless it really was her duty, and then she did n't hesitate.

This was her mood when getting out of the car, but inside the quaint and charming house a look at the visitors' register changed it in a flash. There was one prince and one duke; there were several counts; and as to barons, they were peppered about in rich profusion. Each noble being was accompanied by his chauffeur, so evidently it was the "thing" to stop in the Hotel de l'Europe, and the haut monde considered Avignon worth wasting time upon. Instantly her ladyship resolved