Page:Belloc Lowndes--The end of her honeymoon.djvu/73

Rh not being able to make the hotel people understand her: she had evidently been much disappointed that her husband had not left a message for her.

"My son thinks it possible that Mr. Dampier may have met with an accident on his way to the studio."

A long questioning look flashed from Madame Poulain to her husband, but Poulain was a cautious soul, and he gave his wife no lead.

"Well," she said at last, "of course that could be ascertained," and the Senator with satisfaction told himself that she was at last taking a proper part in what had become his trouble, "but I cannot help thinking, Monsieur le Sénateur, that we might give this naughty husband a little longer—at any rate till to-morrow—to come back to the fold."

And the Senator, perplexed and disturbed, told himself that after all this might be good advice.

But when he again went upstairs and joined the young people, he found that this was not at all a plan to which any one of the three was likely to consent. In fact as he came into the sitting-room where Nancy Dampier was now restlessly walking up and down, he noticed that his son's hat and his son's stick were already in his son's hands.

"I think I ought to go off, father, to the local Commissaire of Police. There's one in every Paris district," said Gerald Burton abruptly. "Mrs. Dampier is convinced that her husband did go out this morning, even if the Poulains did not see him doing