WHITEWASH
afternoon, just before dinner, saying he felt so badly he thought it best to go to his home."
The girls caught at each other with a common impulse. "The landlord—wake him up. Where is he?"
The chambermaid demurred. "It had been a busy day. They were all worn out. Was it permitted that people with nightmare should be waking honest folk out of their sleep—"
Victoria sprang at her and shook her by the shoulders. "Wake the landlord, do you hear? There is something wrong. It must be looked into."
Further parleying was made unnecessary by the appearance of the host, his suspenders hanging, his face swollen with drowsiness, and an expression anything but good-humored.
Sonia stated the case to him with hurried clearness, but his brain, being sleep-clouded and French, failed to take in its import.
"The Englishman in fifty-seven? He had paid his bill and gone. Was it permitted to wake people at midnight, name of a name, with such stories?"
