But poor little Roger tugged at Léonie, who was next him.
"What are we waiting here in this ugly house for?" he said. "Can't we go to Papa and have our chocolate?"
Léonie stooped down and said something to soothe him, and after a while he grew drowsy again, and his little head dropped on to her shoulder. And so they sat for what seemed a terribly long time. It was more than half an hour, till at last Mr. Marton appeared again.
"I've only just got out that luggage," he said. "What a detestable plan that registering it is! And now I've got it I don't know what to do with it, for----"
Mr. Marton glanced at Gladys. She did not seem to be listening.
"Not a bit of him," he replied. "I've hunted right through the station half a dozen times, and it's an hour and a half since the train was due. It cannot be some little delay. It's a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake."
Mrs. Marton's blue eyes gazed up in her husband's face with a look of the deepest anxiety.
Yes, "what was to be done?" That was certainly the question. Mr. Marton looked at his wife for a moment or two without replying. Then he seemed to take a sudden resolution.
"We can't stay here all the morning, that's about all I can say at present," he said. "Come along, we'd better go to the nearest hotel and think over matters."
So off they all set again--Mr. Marton and the rugs, Mrs. Marton and Gladys, Léonie and Roger--another porter being got hold of to bring such of the bags, etc., as were not left at the station with the big luggage. Gladys walked along as if in a dream; she did not even wake up to notice the great wide street and all the carriages, and omnibuses, and carts, and people as they crossed to the hotel in front of the station. She hardly even noticed that all the voices about her were talking in a language she did not understand--she was completely dazed--the only words which remained clearly in her brain were the strange ones which Mr. Marton had made use of--"a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake." "No mistake," that must mean that Papa's not coming to the station was not a mistake, but that there was some reason for it. But "a kettle of fish," what _could_ that have to do with it all? She completely lost herself in puzzling about it. Why she did not simply ask Mrs. Marton to explain it I cannot tell. Perhaps the distressed anxious expression on that young lady's own face had something to do with her not doing so.