She took pains to become friendly with the manager and his staff, and by professing curiosity and interest in the famous personage, she made sure not only that she would have fore-warning of his arrival, but that Jose Medina himself would hear of a charming young lady to whom he appealed as a hero of romance.

She knew Jose to be of a coming-on disposition--and the rest seemed easy.

Only, she had not guarded against the workings of Chance.
The hotel was the Hotel de Napoli, not one of the modern palaces of cement and steel girders, built close to the Prado, but an old house near the Puerto del Sol, a place of lath and plaster walls and thin doors; so that you must not raise your voice unless you wish your affairs to become public property.

To this house Jose Medina came as he had many times come before, and Chance willed that he should occupy the next room to that occupied by Rosa Hahn.

It was the merest accident.