CHAPTER V

M. LE CURÉ

The very obvious decision at which I arrived after a night of
cogitation in my berth was that Jacqueline was to pass as my sister. I
explained my plan to her at breakfast.

There had been the examination of baggage at the frontier and the
tiresome change to a rear car in the early morning, and most of us were
heavy-eyed, but she looked as fresh and charming as ever in her new
waist of black lace and the serge skirt which she had bought the day
before. It seemed impossible to realize that I was really seated
opposite her in the dining car, talking amid the punctuating chatter of
a party of red-cheeked French-Canadian school children who had come on
the train at Sherbrooke, bound for their home on the occasion of the
approaching Christmas holidays.

"You see, Jacqueline," I explained, "it will look strange our
travelling together, unless some close relationship is supposed to
exist between us. I might subject you to embarrassment--so I shall
call you my sister, Miss Hewlett, and you will call me your brother
Paul." And I handed her my visiting card, because she had never heard
my surname before.

"I shall be glad to think of you as my brother Paul," she answered,
looking at the card. She held it in her right hand, and it was not
until the middle of the meal that the left hand came into view.