sed my voice, and she called to me to enter.

I opened the door into the finest bedroom that I have ever seen.

Upon the walls were panels of yellow silk, and all the silks and stuffs
were grey or golden. A soft grey carpet, a deep sofa, a giant
four-poster, a mighty press, a pier-glass, chairs, mirrors,
table-lamps--all were in beautiful taste. An open door in one corner,
admitting the flash of tiles, promised a bath-room. On the bed my
dress-clothes, which I had packed for San Sebastian, lay orderly. And
there, upon a chair, in front of a blazing fire, sat Adele, lightly
clothed, looking extraordinarily girlish, and cheerfully inveigling a
stocking on to a small white foot.

I looked round dazedly.

"Isn't it priceless?" said Adele. "Isn't it all priceless?" She
danced across the room and flung her arms round my neck. "And I
thought you were never coming. I wanted to wait for you, lad, but they
wouldn't let me. But I've run a bath for you and put out all your
clothes. By the way, I can't find your links anywhere. Are you
sure----"

"No," I said, "I'm not. I'm not sure of anything. I'm not sure I'm
awake. I'm not sure I'm alive. I'm not sure I'm not mad. 'Sure'? I
don't know the meaning of the word. What are you doing here? What am
I doing here? Where are we? What's it all mean?"

"My darling," said Adele, "I've not the faintest idea."

"But----"

"Listen. You hadn't been gone five minutes before a man came into the
hotel and up to Jonah. He seemed very nervous and excited, but he was
very polite. He couldn't speak a word of anything but Spanish, but at
last we gathered that he was asking us if we were the people who had
wired to the Grand Hotel. When we said that we were, he talked faster
than ever, and at last we began to understand that he'd got some rooms
for us elsewhere. You can imagine our joy. Once we understood, he
didn't have to ask us whether we'd come. The next minute two
chauffeurs were slinging the baggage on to a couple of cars, and, after
we'd managed to explain that you were coming back, Berry paid some sort
of a bill and we all pushed off. When we saw this wonderful house, we
nearly fainted. As far as I can see, we've got it all to ourselves.
Berry and Daphne are in another room like this, about two doors away,
and Jill's between us. I don't know where Jonah is. I can only
imagine that the man who came is the manager of the Grand Hotel, and
that this is where