As he was rising to make inquiries, the door of his chamber opened. The unknown concluded they were about to introduce the impatiently expected traveler, and made three precipitate steps to meet him.
But, instead of the person he expected, it was Master Cropolé who appeared, and behind him, in the half-dark staircase, the pleasant face of Madame Cropolé, rendered trivial by curiosity. She only gave one furtive glance at the handsome gentleman, and disappeared.
Cropolé advanced, cap in hand, rather bent than bowing.
A gesture of the unknown interrogated him, without a word being pronounced.
“Monsieur,” said Cropolé, “I come to ask how—what ought I to say: your lordship, Monsieur le Comte, or Monsieur le Marquis?”
“Say Monsieur, and speak quickly,” replied the unknown, with that haughty accent which admits of neither discussion nor reply.
“I came, then, to inquire how Monsieur had passed the night, and if Monsieur intended to keep this apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Monsieur, something has happened upon which we could not reckon.”
“What?”
“His Majesty Louis XIV will enter our city today, and will remain here one day, perhaps two.”
Great astonishment was painted on the countenance of the unknown.
“The King of France is coming to Blois?”
“He is on the road, Monsieur.”
“Then there is the stronger reason for my remaining,” said the unknown.
“Very well; but will Monsieur keep all the apartments?”
“I do not understand you. Why should I require less today than yesterday?”
“Because, Monsieur, your lordship will permit me to say, yesterday I did not think proper, when you chose your lodging, to fix any price that might have made your lordship believe that I prejudged your resources; whilst today—”
The unknown colored; the idea at once struck him that he was supposed to be poor, and was being insulted.
“Whilst today,” replied he, coldly, “you do prejudge.”
“Monsieur, I am a well-meaning man, thank God! and simple hotelier as I am, there is in me the blood of a gentleman. My father was a servant and officer of the late Maréchal d’Ancre. God rest his soul!”
“I do not contest that point with you; I only wish to know, and that quickly, to what your questions tend?”
“You are too reasonable, Monsieur, not to comprehend that our city is small, that the court is about to invade it, that the houses will be overflowing with inhabitants, and that lodgings will consequently obtain considerable prices.”
Again the unknown colored. “Name your terms,” said he.
“I name them with scruple, Monsieur, because I seek an honest gain, and that I wish to carry on my business without being uncivil or extravagant in my demands. Now the room you occupy is considerable, and you are alone.”
“That is my business.”
“Oh! certainly. I do not mean to turn Monsieur out.”
The blood rushed to the temples of the unknown; he darted at poor Cropolé, the descendant of one of the officers of the Maréchal d’Ancre, a glance that would have crushed him down to beneath that famous chimney-slab, if Cropolé had not been nailed to the spot by the question of his own proper interests.
“Do you desire me to go?” said he. “Explain yourself—but quickly.”
“Monsieur, Monsieur, you do not understand me. It is very critical—I know—that which I am doing. I express myself badly, or perhaps, as Monsieur is a foreigner, which I perceive by his accent—”
In fact, the unknown spoke with that impetuosity which is the principal character of English accentuation, even among men who speak the French language with the greatest purity.
“As Monsieur is a foreigner, I say, it is perhaps he who does not catch my exact meaning. I wish for Monsieur to give up one or two of the apartments he occupies, which would diminish his expenses and ease my conscience. Indeed, it is hard to increase unreasonably the price of the chambers, when one has had the honor to let them at a reasonable price.”
“How much does the hire amount to since yesterday?”
“Monsieur, to one louis, with refreshments and the charge for the horse.”
“Very well; and that of today?”
“Ah! there is the difficulty. This is the day of the king’s arrival; if the court comes to sleep here, the charge of the day is reckoned. From that it results that three chambers, at two louis each, make six louis. Two louis, Monsieur, are not much; but six louis make a great deal.”
The unknown, from red, as we have seen him, became very pale.
He drew from his pocket, with heroic bravery, a purse embroidered with a coat-of-arms, which he carefully concealed in the hollow of his hand. This purse was of a thinness, a flabbiness, a hollowness, which did not escape the eye of Cropolé.
The unknown emptied the purse into his hand. It contained three double louis, which amounted to the six louis demanded by the host.
But it was seven that Cropolé had required.
He looked, therefore, at the unknown, as much as to say, “And then?”
“There remains one louis, does there not, master hotelier?”
“Yes, Monsieur, but—”
The unknown plunged his hand into the pocket of his haut-de-chausses, and emptied it. It contained a small pocketbook, a gold key, and some silver. With this change, he made up a louis.
“Thank you, Monsieur,” said Cropolé. “It now only remains for me to ask whether Monsieur intends to occupy his apartments tomorrow, in which case I will reserve them for him; whereas, if Monsieur does not mean to do so, I will promise them to some of the king’s people who are coming.”
“That is but right,” said the unknown, after a long silence; “but as I have no more money, as you have seen, and as I yet must retain the apartments, you must either sell this diamond in the city, or hold it in pledge.”
Cropolé looked at the diamond so long, that the unknown said, hastily:
“I prefer your selling it, Monsieur;
