“Please allow me, Madame, to escort you to somewhere more suitable...uh...to your needs,” her ejector said with exquisite politeness. It was a very civilized way of putting her in her place.
“You are a master of tact, Monsieur,” Kristy said dryly.
He completely missed the irony edging her words. He positively preened, beaming his appreciation of her compliment. “We have—may I say it—a worldwide reputation for tact and... uh... understanding. Thank you.”
“This place you wish to escort me to...I hope it is cheap, Monsieur,” Kristy said with blunt directness. There was no onus on her to play with subtleties. “You see, I don’t have a lot of money...”
“Say no more, Madame. Discretion. Appeasement. Understanding. With my experience...” He spread his hands in a gesture that embraced a whole world of discretion and appeasement and understanding.
“In that case,” Kristy said decisively, “I may as well get going right now. If you will excuse me, I’ll just collect my bag.” She didn’t want the services of another bellboy, not in this hotel.
“Non, non, Madame. Allow me to carry it for you.”
It surprised Kristy. She would have thought it was beneath his dignity to act as her porter. In a tearing hurry to get her out of his hotel, she thought with bitter cynicism.
She stepped back, waving a careless invitation for him to enter. He collected her canvas carryall while she retrieved her handbag. Coming here had been a silly daydream, Kristy told herself as they vacated the room. The past was gone and could never be truly recaptured. At least she’d seen the place. In the circumstances, that was quite enough.
The manager led her along the corridor. He only went a short way before putting down her bag and producing a set of keys which he flourished as though he was St. Peter about to open the portals of heaven. Kristy did a swift rethink. He couldn’t be throwing her out of the hotel after all, so this must be a cheaper room.
He unlocked the door before them, swung it open like an impresario, and eloquently gestured Kristy forward. “Madame, your room,” he announced with almost smug satisfaction.
Kristy took several steps, saw what was in front of her, and stopped dead. Was this some kind of joke? To take her out of a room and lead her to what was clearly a luxurious suite had to be the height of perversity when she had made such a point of revealing a very real need not to be extravagant.
“I can’t afford this,” she protested.
The manager looked offended. “Madame is our guest. Of course Madame is not expected to pay for anything while she is our guest.” His voice had a touch of outrage at her failure to understand his understanding.
“I think,” said Kristy forcefully, “there is some mistake.”
“Madame...uh...Holloway . . .” He gave another little jovial chuckle and added a conspiratorial wink. “The mistake has been rectified.”
He marched into the huge sitting room—complete with a conservatory and a private terrace—and into a dressing-room where he deposited her canvas carryall, thereby emphasizing her accepted status here. Kristy watched him doubtfully, certain there had been some ridiculous mix-up. On the other hand, he had called her by her own name although why he persisted with Madame was beyond her. He could not have failed to notice she wasn’t wearing any rings.
“Are you sure this is the right place for me, Monsieur? ” she asked, feeling the need to get this pinned down to something concrete.
He beamed supreme confidence. “Certainement”
Kristy gave up. She didn’t need the stress of sorting out this madness, or getting a room in another hotel. This was some management bungle and they could pay for it. She’d made her terms absolutely clear, and after all this hassle, no way was she going to be shifted again.
“One last thing, Madame Holloway . . .”
“Yes?”
The manager went to a door on the other side of the sitting room, took a key from the flourished key ring, and inserted it in the lock. “For your use only,” he said solemnly.
Kristy looked at him blankly. What did he mean by that?
He gave the key a dramatic twist. “Unlocked,” he said. Then he turned the key the other way. “Locked,” he said. “I will leave it to Madame’s discretion.”
“Monsieur . . .” Kristy expostulated, totally bewildered by the whole sequence of events.
“Say no more. Say no more. Tact. Diplomacy. Understanding. We know all these things.”
He withdrew the key from the lock, came across the room, and pressed it into her hand. It was too much for Kristy. Altogether too much.
“Monsieur . . .”
“Enough. You are our guest You pay for nothing. If this...er...delicate situation can be fortunately resolved... uh...please remember me.”
And so saying, he bowed his way out of the room, leaving her with another of his jovial little laughs, to which he seemed addicted.
Of one thing Kristy was absolutely certain. There was some mistake here of gigantic proportions. It was equally clear it was someone else’s mistake. She had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
She frowned over his parting words...this delicate situation. What was he referring to? She didn’t have a clue. It just seemed that ever since the hotel doorman had laid eyes on her, the world had shifted out of kilter.
Discretion said she should get out of here as soon as possible. Retreat. Retire before some ghastly disaster occurred. Un scandale terrible!
The over-the-top thought evoked a burst of somewhat hysterical laughter. Which suggested, after she’d sobered up again, that her nerves were in a bad way. The experience of this hotel was definitely not soothing, as she had anticipated it would be. The depression of being totally alone hit her again, whispering that her trip to Geneva would probably be a failure, too.
The energy that had driven her to this journey drained away. Let the hotel management discover its mistake, she decided listlessly. There was no need for her to pre-empt any action. She had tried to protest, to explain, to set the situation straight. None of this was her fault. No doubt she would receive another visit soon and everything would be resolved properly, so there was no point in unpacking her bag.
Meanwhile, she had this key in her hand. Kristy eyed the interconnecting door which could be locked or unlocked with the burning-question key. Maybe the answers, or some answer to this delicate situation, lay on the other side of the door. It was none of her business, of course. On the other hand, she had somehow got involved.
She thought of Pandora who opened the lid of the box which let loose all the troubles of the world. Curiosity was a terrible thing and it could be very dangerous. Better to let it go and not risk adding more trouble to trouble.
Kristy set the key down on a coffee table and turned her back on it. She walked out to the private terrace, deciding she might as well enjoy all this luxury while she could because she couldn’t see it lasting for long. This was not the place for her and that key could only lead to something even more out of bounds.
The view was the kind which sold postcards; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Place de la Concorde, all spread out for her to admire and wonder at the genius which had planned such a magnificent vista. Kristy, however, could not concentrate her mind on it. A sense of restlessness drove her back into the sitting room.
The