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Rh him that I was off to Ruritania the news would have been in London in three days and in Park Lane in a week. I was therefore about to return an evasive answer when he saved my conscience by leaving me suddenly and darting across the platform. Following him with my eyes, I saw him lift his hat and accost a graceful, fashionably dressed woman who had just appeared from the booking office. She was perhaps a year or two over thirty, tall, dark, and of rather full figure. As George talked, I saw her glance at me, and my vanity was hurt by the thought that, muffled in a fur coat and a neck wrapper (for it was a chilly April day) and wearing a soft traveling hat pulled down over my ears, I must be looking very far from my best. A moment later George rejoined me.

"You've got a charming traveling companion," he said. "That's poor Bert Bertrand's goddess, Antoinette de Mauban, and, like you, she's going to Dresden—also, no doubt, to see the pictures. It's very queer, though, that she doesn't at present desire the honor of your acquaintance."