Roger sat straight up, with an appearance of great interest.
"Your tongue," he repeated. "Please let me see it," and he stared hard at Léonie's half-opened mouth. "Is it not like our tongues then?"
Léonie stared too, then she burst out laughing.
"Oh, I don't mean tongue like that," she said, "I mean talking – language. When I was little like you I could talk nothing but French, just like you now, who can talk only English."
"And can't everybody in France talk English too?" asked Gladys, opening her eyes.
"Oh dear no!" said Léonie.
Gladys and Roger looked at each other. This was quite a new and rather an alarming idea.
"It is a very good thing," Gladys remarked at last, "that Papa is to be at the station. If we got lost over there," she went on, nodding her head in the direction of an imaginary France, "it would be even worse than in London."
"But you're not going to get lost anywhere," said Léonie, smiling. "We'll take better care of you than that."
And then she went on to tell them a little story of how once, when she was a very little girl, she had got lost – not in Paris, but in a much smaller town – and how frightened she was, and how at last an old peasant woman on her way home from market had found her crying under a hedge, and had brought her home again to her mother. This thrilling adventure was listened to with the greatest interest.
"How pleased your mother must have been to see you again!" said Gladys. "Does she still live in that queer old town? Doesn't she mind you going away from her?"
"Alas!" said Léonie, and the tears twinkled in her bright eyes, "my mother is no longer of this world. She went away from me several years ago. I shall not see her again till in heaven."
"That's like us," said Gladys. "We've no Mamma. Did you know?"
"But you've a good Papa," said Léonie.
"Yes," said Gladys, rather doubtfully, for somehow the idea of a real flesh-and-blood Papa seemed to be getting more instead of less indistinct now that they were soon to see him. "But he's been away such a very long time."
"Poor darlings," said Léonie.
"And have you no Papa, no little brothers, not any one like that?" inquired Gladys.
"I have some cousins – very good people," said Léonie. "They live in Paris, where we are now going. If there had been time I should have liked to go to see them. But we shall stay no time in Paris – just run from one station to the other."
"But the luggage?" said Gladys. "Mrs. Marton has a lot of boxes. I don't see how you can run if you have them to carry. I think it would be better to take a cab, even if it does cost a little more. But perhaps there are no cabs in Paris. Is that why you talk of running to the station?"
Léonie had burst out laughing half-way through this speech, and though she knew it was not very polite, she really could not help it. The more she tried to stop, the more she laughed.
"What is the matter?" said Gladys at last, a little offended.
"I beg your pardon," said Léonie; "I know it is rude. But, Mademoiselle, the idea" – and here she began to laugh again – "of Monsieur and Madame and me all running with the boxes! It was too amusing!"
Gladys laughed herself now, and so did Roger.
"Then there are cabs in Paris," she said in a tone of relief. "I am glad of that. Papa will have one all ready for us, I suppose. What time do we get there, Léonie?"
Léonie shook her head.
"A very disagreeable time," she said, "quite, quite early in the morning, before anybody seems quite awake. And the mornings are already so cold. I am afraid you will not like Paris very much at first."
"Oh yes, they will," said Mrs. Marton, who had overheard the last part of the conversation. "Think how nice it will be to see their Papa waiting for them, and to go to a nice warm house and have breakfast; chocolate, most likely. Do you like chocolate?"
"Yes, very much," said Gladys and Roger.
"I think it is not you to be pitied, anyway," Mrs. Marton went on, for the half-appealing, half-frightened look of the little things touched her. "It's much worse for us three, poor things, travelling on all the way to Marseilles."
"That's where Papa's been. Mrs. Lacy showed it me on the map. What a long way! Poor Mrs. Marton. Wouldn't Mr. Marton let you stay at Paris with us till you'd had a rest?"
"We'd give you some of our chocolate," said Roger hospitably.
"And let poor Phillip, that's Mr. Marton," replied the young lady, "go all the way to India alone?"
The children looked doubtful.
"You could go after him," suggested Roger.
"But Léonie and I wouldn't like to go so far alone. It's nicer to have a man to take care of you when you travel. You're getting to be a man, you see, Roger, already – learning to take care of your sister."
"I have growed a good big piece on the nursery door since my birthday," agreed Roger complacently. "But when Papa's there he'll take care of us both till I'm quite big."
"Ah, yes, that will be best of all," said Mrs. Marton, smiling. "I do hope Papa will be there all right, poor little souls," she added to herself. For, though young, Mrs. Marton was not thoughtless, and she belonged to a happy and prosperous family where since infancy every care had been lavished on the children, and somehow since she had seen and talked to Gladys and Roger their innocence and loneliness had struck her sharply, and once or twice a misgiving had come over her that in her anxiety to get rid of the children, and to waste no money, Susan Lacy had acted rather hastily. "Captain Bertram should have telegraphed again," she reflected. "It is nearly a week since he did so. I wish I had made Phillip telegraph yesterday to be sure all was right. The Lacys need not have known anything about it."
But they were at Dover now, and all these fears and reflections were put out of her head by the bustle of embarking and settling themselves comfortably, and devoutly hoping they would have a good passage. The words meant nothing to Gladys and Roger. They had never been on the sea since they were little babies, and had no fears. And, fortunately, nothing disturbed their happy ignorance, for, though cold, the sea was very smooth. They were disappointed at the voyage being made in the dark, as they had counted on all sorts of investigations into the machinery of the "ship," and Roger had quite expected that his services would be required to help to make it go faster, whereas it seemed to them only as if they were taken into a queer sort of drawing-room and made to lie down on red sofas, and covered up with shawls, and that then there came a booming noise something like the threshing machine at the farm where they sometimes went to fetch butter and eggs, and then – and then – they fell asleep, and when they woke they were being bundled into another railway carriage! Léonie was carrying Roger, and Gladys, as she found to her great disgust – she thought herself far too big for anything of the kind – was in Mr. Marton's arms, where she struggled so that the poor man thought she was having an attack of nightmare, and began to soothe her as if she were about two, which did not improve matters.
"Hush, hush, my dear. You shall go to sleep again in a moment," he said. "But what a little vixen she is!" he added, when he had at last got Gladys, red and indignant, deposited in a corner.
"I'm too big to be carried," she burst out, half sobbing. "I wouldn't even let Papa carry me."
But kind Mrs. Marton, though she could hardly help laughing, soon put matters right by assuring Gladys that lots of people, even quite big grown-up ladies, were often lifted in and out of ships. When it was rough only the sailors could keep their footing. So Gladys, who was beginning to calm down and to feel a little ashamed, took it for granted that it had been very rough, and told Mr. Marton she was very sorry – she had not understood. The railway carriage was warm and comfortable, so after a while the children again did the best thing they could under the circumstances – they went to sleep. And so, I think, did their three grown-up friends.
Gladys