Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/75

Rh vexed but still laughing. Her husband whispered again, in a tone of great mystery:

"That your hat was in disorder!"

"Oh, that is not true! Really not true!"

Sparkling with mirth, and at the same time trembling at the idea of the great danger she had encountered unawares, she protested that it was impossible; she had looked in the mirror of her nécessaire so many times before reaching Hergyswyl.

Every moment of that hour passed two years before, they recalled together jestingly; she often kissing his breast, and he her hair. Giovanni had not waited for her at the station, where there was a crowd of holiday-makers, but a few yards distant, on the road leading to the hotel. He had seen her coming, tall, slender, with a tiny sprig of Olea fragrans, the sign they had chosen, at her breast. He had approached her, his head bared, and they had pressed one another's hands in silence. He had signed to the porter, who was following with her travelling bag, to precede them. They had followed slowly, their throats contracted by a nameless emotion. She had been the first to murmur, in her sweet refined voice: "Mon ami."

Then he had spoken in subdued tones, in broken sentences, of his infatuation, of his love, of his ecstasy, and had not noticed when they passed the hotel. Twice the porter called after them:

"Monsieur! Madame! C'est ici!" and neither