3Emilie glanced around the sitting room with an air of satisfaction. The breakfast laid on a spotless white cloth in the window was appetising and elegantly served. So far things had gone exactly as she had planned them and she felt the thrill that a General might feel when his troops have been successful in some carefully prepared manoeuvre.
She and Mistral had arrived at the Hôtel de Paris the night before. They had travelled in what appeared to Emilie to be astonishing comfort on the railway which now connected Monaco with Nice. Inevitably she must compare every step of the journey with the one she had taken nineteen years earlier with Alice. Then they had travelled slowly and in much discomfort, and when finally they reached Nice, they had been confronted with the choice of an uncomfo
