She always maneuvered that the doctor should come between the two.
Upon returning to the station they took refuge from the heat in a little waiting room with dusty velvet divans.

In order to beguile the time while waiting for the train, Freya took from her handbag a gold cigarette-case and the light smoke of Egyptian tobacco charged with opium whirled among the shafts of sunlight from the partly-opened windows.
Ferragut, who had gone out in order to ascertain the exact hour of the arrival of the train, on returning stopped near the door, amazed at the animation with which the two ladies were speaking in a new language.
Recollections of Hamburg and Bremen came surging up in his memory.

His companions were talking German with the ease of a familiar idiom.

At sight of the sailor, they instantly continued their conversation in English.
Wishing to take part in the dialogue, he asked Freya how many languages she spoke.
"Very few,--no more than eight.

The doctor, perhaps, knows twenty.