Queer Lady Judas Author:Rita Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: "Oh! would you mind taking me across the road?" I entreated. The arm I clutched steadied itself under my grasp. I was conscious that the figure beside me drew... more » itself up, but that it was not the commanding figure I had imagined. " Pardon, madame ! It is that you wish to cross the street ? But, certainly, I shall have much pleasure to aid you. How it is dark—this brouillard ! Ah ! but what a climate affrcux you have in this England ! Tenez madame—have a care! It is better that one makes slow. See, the light shows just one little instant. Pas si vite, madame, pas si vite. There ! Make steady now; we are arrived ! " I thanked him in his own tongue. He hailed me compatriot with enthusiasm, but I denied the flattery. " I have been many years in your country; Paris was my home ; but I am not French," I said. He was polite enough to say he would never have guessed the fact but for madame's frank acknowledgment. He asked if he could be of any further assistance, and I gladly availed myself of his aid to the next turning, which I knew meant my street. Even then the trouble was not over. It was too dark to distinguish the numbers of the mansions, and we groped into several entrances before I discovered my own. Then I thanked him gratefully—even asking if he would not come up to the flat and await the possible lifting of this so '-' abominable brouillard." He declined the offer with simple courtesy. " I am but the owner of one insignificant little pharmacie in the next street—the Pharmagie Thibaud. Madame may perhaps have observed it." " I have only just come here," I said. "It is my name," he went on, " Andrd Thibaud, at the service of madame, who owns but one small petite pharmacie with a lamp of red above the door. Madame will have the goodness to remember? " I s...« less