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Soon the whole outline of the house could be traced through the enveloping darkness: two of the windows were lighted from within, and an oil lamp, flickering feebly, was fixed in a recess just above the door. The welcome words: "Chambres pour voyageurs. Aristide Briot, propriétaire," greeted Maurice's wearied eyes as he drew rein.
You will of course wish to express your sense of the compliment paid to your house by adding your name to the subscription list of the Petit Courier Illustré?" "Oh, by by all means with pleasure," faltered the propriétaire. "For how many copies, Monsieur Choucru? Shall we say six?" Monsieur looked at Madame. Madame nodded. Müller took out his pocket-book, and waited, pencil in hand.
Madame la Propriétaire shrugged her shoulders. "I am not at my first communion. I have grown grey in the service of lodgers. And this is how they reward me." She called Jacques, who had followed uneasily in Madame Dépine's wake. "Is there anything in the room?" "Empty as an egg-shell, madame." "Not even the miniature of her sister?" "Not even the miniature of her sister."
"Is there a hotel?" he asked cheerfully. He had noticed that the islanders understood legitimate French, though they could not speak it. "There is one," said the woman. She pushed away her plate and became suddenly dourly communicative. "But I doubt if the propriétaire would find room for m'sieu'." "Has he so many guests, then?" "But no. M'sieu' has forgotten the priest." "The priest?
Nothing, however, turns up, and at the expiration of an hour I naturally begin to feel neglected and impatient, and again suggest the rope; when, at a motion from le proprietaire, le portier pilots me around a neighboring corner to a locksmith's establishment, where, voluntarily acting the part of interpreter, he engages on my behalf, for half a franc, a man to come with a bunch of at least a hundred skeleton-keys of all possible shapes to attack the refractory key-hole.
"He wanted to see you, and the third-floor gentleman also about the rent." "Dear Richard! What an admirable memory he has for dates! Did he leave any message, Madame Duphôt?" The old woman looked at me, and hesitated. "He says, M'sieur Müller he says ..." "Nay, this gentleman is a friend you may speak out. What does our beloved and respected propriétaire say, Madame Duphôt?"
"Here we are at last," cried the driver, throwing down his whip on the horse's back, as he sprang to the ground, and read aloud from a board fastened to a tree, "'Pension Bourgeoise. M. Rubichon, propriétaire. Shall I wait for monsieur?" "No. Take out that portmanteau and cloak; I'm not going back now."
It was not only their common grievances against fate and Madame la Propriétaire: they were linked by the sheer physical fact that each was the only person to whom the other could talk without the morbid consciousness of an eye scrutinising the unseemly brown wig.
Le proprietaire, doubtless, thinks a man capable of leaving the key inside of the door must be the worst type of an ignoramus; and certainly my opinion of him for leaving such a diabolical arrangement unchanged in the latter half of the nineteenth century is not far removed from the same.
Miss Blake, who never listened to what any one said, took it for granted that the little girl was the tuner for whom M. le Proprietaire had promised to send; and having bestowed on her a condescending nod, passed out into the garden, where she told some of the visitors that the piano had been tuned at last, and that the tuner was a young woman of rather eccentric appearance.
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