As is generally the case in a French hotel, it was Madame who took command.
She poured forth a torrent of eager, excited words, and at last Dampier
turned to his wife:--"They got my letter, but of course had no address to
which they could answer, and--and it's rather a bore, darling--but they
don't seem to have any rooms vacant."

But even as he spoke the fat, cheerful-looking Frenchwoman put her hand on
the young Englishman's arm. She had seen the smart-looking box of the
bride, the handsome crocodile skin bag of the bridegroom, and again she
burst forth, uttering again and again the word "arranger."

Dampier turned once more, this time much relieved, to his wife: "Madame
Poulain (that's her name, it seems) thinks she can manage to put us up all
right to-night, if we don't mind two very small rooms--unluckily not on the
same floor. But some people are going away to-morrow and then she'll have
free some charming rooms overlooking the garden."

He took a ten-franc piece out of his pocket as he spoke, and handed it to
the gratified cabman:--"It doesn't seem too much for a drive through
fairyland"--he said aside to his wife.

And Nancy nodded contentedly. It pleased her that her Jack should be
generous--the more that she had found out in the last three weeks that if
generous, he was by no means a spendthrift. He had longed to buy a couple
of Persian prayer carpets in that queer little warehouse where a French
friend of his had taken them in Lyons, but he had resisted the
temptation--nobly.

Meanwhile Madame Poulain was talking, talking, talking--emphasising all she
said with quick, eager gestures.