"London," Sylvia said, quickly. She always answered this kind of question before Queenie could blush and stammer something unintelligible. "But she's been on the Continent since she was a little girl, and can't speak any language except with the accent of the one she spoke last." Then she changed the subject by asking him where he advised them to go next. "I should advise you to go back to England. These are no times for two girls to be roaming about Europe." "You'd hardly describe me as a girl," Sylvia laughed. "Even I can no longer describe myself as one. Passports have been fatal to some cherished secrets. No, we can't get back to England, chiefly because we haven't saved enough money for the fare, and secondly because the passport-office in Bucharest didn't consider me a good enough voucher for Queenie's right to a British passport." "Wouldn't they recommend the consul to issue one?" Sylvia shook her head. "Too bad," said the vice-consul, in a cheerful voice. "But that's one of the minor horrors of war, this accumulation of a new set of officials begotten by the military upon the martial enthusiasm of non-combatants. It's rather ridiculous, isn't it, to assume that all consuls are incapable of their own job?... But I suppose I've no business to be displaying professional jealousy at such a moment," he broke off. "Would you have given her a passport?" Sylvia asked. The vice-consul looked at Queenie with a smile. "I could hardly have refused, eh?" But Sylvia knew that, once inside his Consulate, he would probably be even more pedantic than Philip, and this affectation of gallantry over coffee rather annoyed her. "But what _are_ you going to do?" he went on. "Oh, I don't know," said Sylvia, curtly. "Leave things to arrange themselves, I suppose." "Yes, that's a very good attitude to take up when your desk is untidy, but, seriously, I shouldn't advise you to leave things to arrange themselves by touring round Rumania. These provincial towns are wretched holes." "What's Avereshti like?" "I don't know. I've never been there. It's not likely to be any better than Galantza or Bralatz, except for being a good deal nearer to Bucharest. Oh dear! everything's very gloomy. That Suvla business will keep out the Rumanians for some time. In fact, I don't think myself they'll ever come in now, unless they come in with the Germans. Why don't you take a week's holiday here?" But the vice-consul, who had seemed agreeable at first, was getting on Sylvia's nerves with his admiration for Queenie, and she told him that they should leave next day. "Too bad," he exclaimed. "But that's the way of the world. When a consul would like to be thoroughly bothered by somebody, nothing will induce that person to waste five minutes of his precious time. Your friend Maud, on the contrary, haunted me like a bluebottle."