When she came to herself her first action--an action that seemed, when afterward she thought about it, to mark well the depths of her disillusionment--was to feel for her money lest she might have been robbed during her unconsciousness. The wad of notes had not shrunk; the waiter was looking at her with all the sympathy that could be bought for twenty francs; a blowsy chambermaid, dragged for the operation from a coal-cellar, to judge by her appearance, was sprinkling water over her. "What was the man like?" she murmured. The waiter bustled forward. "A tall gentleman. He left no name. He said he brought a message. He paid a few little items on the bill that were not paid by _madame_. They took the train for Bucharest. _Mademoiselle_ was looking ill." Sylvia mustered all that will of hers, which lately had been tried hardly enough, to obliterate Queenie and everything that concerned Queenie from her consciousness. She fought down each superstitious reproach for not having kept her word by drinking the coffee in Bucharest: she drove forth from her mind every speculation about Queenie's future: she dried up every regret for any carelessness in the past. "Clear away all this paper, please," she told the chambermaid; then she asked the waiter for the menu. He dusted the grimy card and handed it to her. "_J'ai tellement faim_," said Sylvia, "_que je saurais manger même toi sans beurre_." The waiter inclined his head respectfully, as if he would intimate his willingness to be eaten; but he tempered his assent with a smile to show that he was sensible that the sacrifice would not be exacted. "And the wine?" he asked. She chose half a bottle of the best native wine; and the waiter hurried away like a lame rook. After lunch Sylvia carefully packed her things and put all her professional dresses away at the bottom of her large trunk. In the course of packing, the golden shawl that contained the records of her ancestry was left out of the trunk by accident, and she put it in the valise, which so far on her journeys she had always managed to keep with her. Philidor's solemn warning about the political situation in the Balkans had made an impression, and, thinking it was possible that she might have to abandon her trunk at any moment, she was glad of the oversight that had led her to making this change; though if she had been asked to give a reason for paying any heed to the shawl now she would have found it difficult. When she had finished her packing she sat down and wrote a letter to Olive. HOTEL MOLDAVIA, AVERESHTI, _September 27, 1915_.