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Updated: June 21, 2025
He paused and studied the Hôtel Railleux with an attention that he had denied to the large and common hostelries that front the station. He looked at it long and meditatively, then very slowly and thoughtfully he walked to the end of the street.
If monsieur would have the goodness to take two steps in this direction! He dived into a long, dark corridor, illuminated by a single flickering gas-jet, twin brother to that which lighted the office below; and, still eager, still breathing loudly, he ushered the guest toward what in his humble soul he believed to be the luxurious, the impressive bedroom supplied by the Hôtel Railleux at three francs a night.
He had arrived here without luggage, shabby, unrecommended, yet no princely compatriot of his own could have been made more sensible of welcome. He stepped out of the office and followed his guide, conscious that, if only for an instant, Paris had lifted her mask and smiled the radiant, anticipated smile. There is no such unnecessary luxury as a lift in the Hôtel Railleux.
For a fleeting second the boy's eyes looked away beyond Jean untidy, attentive, comprehending beyond the neutral-tinted walls and the shabby carpet of the Hôtel Railleux, seeing in vision the things that were to come. Then, with his swift impulsiveness, he flung his dream from him. What mattered the future? What mattered the past?
In a strange confusion of ideas, the white face of the woman Lize sprang to his imagination, coupled with the memory of the empty champagne bottle and the battered tray of the first night at the Hôtel Railleux. A deadly sensitiveness oppressed him; he turned sharply to his guide. "Madame! Madame! It is an altogether unreasonable hour to intrude "
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