"How is Mrs. O----?" I said.
He answered with the inevitable "Oh!" "Oh! she's all right. She's outside
in the cab."
"Indeed!" I said, and wondered why she had not sent her card in with his,
though I supposed she was waiting to be asked to come in, if he found me
at home.
"We thought before trying anywhere else we would see if you could take us
in."
This staggered me considerably. I tried to take _him_ "in" as he stood
before me with traveling cap and umbrella.
"Are you full?" he went on. Mademoiselle and I wondered if we showed signs
of a too copious luncheon.
"Why, what a nice place you have here!" looking about. "Well," he
continued, nothing daunted, "you see, we only want one bedroom, for us,
with a room next for baby, and one not too far off for Arthur."
What was he driving at? Mademoiselle W---- thought he was either a spy or
a burglar who had come to take a survey of the hotel. Her bracelets and
bunch of keys rattled ominously as the thought of burglars entered her
brain.
He, familiarly settling himself down for a chat, "Do you think you could
pick up a maid for Mrs. O----?"
Mademoiselle and I exchanged a glance of intelligent indulgence and
thought: All our friends wanted, probably, was a few addresses before
settling themselves in Paris. How stupid of us not to have thought of this
sooner! I hastened to promise all sorts of names and addresses of
tradespeople, thinking he would take his departure.
Not he! On the contrary, he tucked his umbrella more firmly under his arm,
and turned to Mademoiselle W----: "Have you got a register?" taking her,
no doubt, for _la dame du comptoir_.
Mademoiselle draped herself in her most Rachel-like attitude and glanced
knowingly at the hot-air flue which she had been told was a register.
"We have," she answered curtly, wondering if this extraordinary creature
could be suffering from cold on this warm spring day.
"I had better write my name down!" This was too much! Mademoiselle thought
now that he was not only a burglar, but a lunatic.
"I think," I said, "I can give you the address of a very nice maid,"
trying to lead him back into the paths we had trodden before.
"Oh! that'll be all right. You have perhaps a maid in the house?"
"Certainly we have," answered Mademoiselle with asperity, giving her
velvet bow an agitated pat.
"Money is no object," continued he; "I'm always willing to pay what one
asks." Mademoiselle now thought he was drunk and was for sending for the
servants.