She took the paper with her and hurried from the room. In the hall her husband stood talking to Karl. She went to him and pointed to the telegram. “Is it for this we are to leave?” she asked.
He read the notice and returned it. “Yes,” he answered, “it is for that.” And then it was that both chill and fever passed away.
The journey from Biarritz was accomplished without incident. On their previous visit to Paris, they had put up at the Bristol and to that hostelry they returned. The manager had been notified and the yellow suite overlooking the Place Vendôme was prepared for their reception. On arriving, Maida went at once with her maid to her room. Mr. Incoul changed his clothes, passed an hour at the Hamman, breakfasted at Voisin’s, and then had himself driven to a house-agent.
The clerk, a man of fat and greasy presence, gave him a list of apartments, marking with a star those which he thought might prove most suitable. Mr. Incoul visited them all. He had never lived in an apartment in Paris and the absence of certain conveniences perplexed him. The last apartment of those that were starred was near the Arc de Triomphe. When he had been shown it over he found a seat, and heedless of the volubility of the concierge, rested his head in his hand and thought. For the moment it seemed to him as though it would be best to return to New York, but there were objections to that, and reflecting that there might be other and better arranged apartments, he left the chattering concierge and drove again to the agent’s.
“I have seen nothing I liked,” he said simply.
At this the clerk expressed his intense surprise. The apartment in the Avenue Montaigne was everything that there was of most fine, and wait, the Hospodar of Wallachia had just quitted the one in the Rue de Presbourg. “It astonishes me much,” he said.
The astonishment of the clerk was to Mr. Incoul a matter of perfect indifference. “Have you any private houses?” he asked.
“Ah, yes, particular hotels.” Yes, there was one near the Trocadero, but for his part he found that the apartment in the Avenue Montaigne would fit him much better. “But now that I am there,” he continued, “I recall myself of one that is enchanter as a subjunctive. I engage you to visit it.” And thereupon he wrote down the address of the house in the Parc Monceau.
It was not, Mr. Incoul discovered, a large dwelling, but the appointments left little to be desired. In the dressing-rooms was running water, and each of the bedrooms was supplied with gas-fixtures. He touched one to see if it were in working order, and immediately the escaping ether assured him that it was. He sniffed it with a feeling akin to pleasure. One would have thought that since he left Madison Avenue he had not enjoyed such a treat. There was gas to be found in the dining-room, but the reception-rooms were furnished with lamps and candelabras. The bedrooms were on the floor above. One of these overlooked the park. There was a dressing-room next to it, but to the two rooms there was but one entrance, and that from the hall. This little suite, Mr. Incoul resolved, should be occupied by his wife. Beyond, across the hall, was a sitting-room, and at the other end of the house was a second suite, which Mr. Incoul mentally selected for himself.
He returned to the agent, and informed him that the house suited him, an announcement which the man received with an air of personal sympathy.
“Is it not!” he exclaimed, “it made the mouth champagne nothing but to think there. And again, one was at home with one’s self. Truly, the hotel was beautiful as a boulevard. Monsieur would never regret himself of it. And had Monsieur servants? No, good then. Let Monsieur not disquiet himself. He who spoke knew of a cook, veritably a blue ribbon, and as to masters of hôtel, why, anointed name of a dog, not later than yesterday, he had heard that Baptiste—he who had served the family of Cantacuzène—Monsieur knew her, without doubt, came to be free.”
In many respects Paris is not what it might be. The shops are vulgar in their ostentation. Were Monte Cristo to return he would find his splendor cheap and commonplace. In a city where Asiatic magnificence is sold from misfit and remnant counters by the ton, where emeralds large as swallows’ eggs are to be had in the side-streets at a discount, where agents are ready to provide everything from an opéra-seria to a shoelace, the badauds have lost their ability to be startled. Paris, moreover, is not what it was. The suavity and civility for which it was proverbial have gone the way of other old-fashioned virtues; the wit which used to
