Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/109

Rh but for that we might 'ave 'ad much worry"—she shook her head. "They were so much annoyed that poor Sasha 'ad no passport. But, as I said to them—for Fritz quite lost 'is 'ead, and could say nothing—not 'alf, no, not a quarter of the strangers in Aix 'as passports, though, of course, it is a good and useful thing to 'ave one. I suppose, Madame, that you 'ave a passport?"

She stopped short, and looked at Sylvia with that eager, inquiring look which demands an answer even to the most unimportant question.

"A passport?" repeated Sylvia Bailey, surprised. "No, indeed! I've never even seen one. Why should I have a passport?"

"When you are abroad it is always a good thing to 'ave a passport," said Madame Wachner quickly. "You see, it enables you to be identified. It gives your address at 'ome. But I do not think that you can get one now—no, it is a thing that one must get in one's own country, or, at any rate," she corrected herself, "in a country where you 'ave resided a long time."

"What is your country, Madame?" asked Sylvia. "Are you French? I suppose Monsieur Wachner is German?"

Madame Wachner shook her head.

"Oh, 'e would be cross to 'ear that! No, no, Fritz is Viennese—a gay Viennese! As for me, I am"—she waited a moment"well, Madame, I am what the French call une vraie cosmopolite—oh, yes, I am a true citizeness of the world."