"Can I see the billeting lieutenant?"
"He is not here."
"I saw him enter."
"We will go and see...."
She drummed upon the table with her fingers and the clerks and secretaries winked and nodded more meaningly than ever.
"_Entrez_, mademoiselle. He will see you."
The red-haired lieutenant with pince-nez was upon his feet looking at her curiously as she entered the adjoining room.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. There is something wrong with the billet that I found you yesterday?"
She looked at him. In his pale-blue eyes there was a beam; in his creased mouth there was an upward curve. The story of legitimate complaint that she had prepared drooped in her mind; she looked at him a little longer, hesitated, then, risking everything:
"Monsieur, there is a stuffed owl in the room."
He did not wince. "Take it out, mademoiselle."
"H"m, yes. I cannot see heaven except through orange gla.s.s."
"Open the window."
"It is fixed."
Then he failed her; he was a busy, sensible man.
"Mademoiselle, I find you a billet, I instal you, and you come to me in the middle of the morning with this ridiculous story of an owl. It isn"t reasonable...."
The door opened and his superior officer walked in, a stern captain with no crease about his mouth, no beam in his olive eye.
Ah, now ... Now the lieutenant had but to turn to his superior officer and she would indeed be rent, and reasonably so.
"What is the matter?" said the newcomer. "Is something fresh needed?"
The billeting lieutenant never hesitated a second.
"_Mon capitaine_, unfortunately the billet found yesterday for this lady is unsuitable. The owner of the house returns this week, and needs the room."
"Have you some other lodging for her?"
"Yes, _mon capitaine_, in the Rue de Cleves."
"Good. Then there is no difficulty?"
"None. Follow me, mademoiselle, the street is near. I will take you to the _concierge_."
She followed him down the stairs, and caught him up upon the pavement.
"You may think, mademoiselle, that it is because I am young and susceptible."
"Oh, no, no...."
"Indeed, I _am_ young; But I slept in that room myself the first night I came to Charleville...."
"My room with the owl? Do you mean that?"
"Yes, I put him upon the landing. But even then I dared not break the window. Here is the street."
"How you frightened me when your captain came in! How grateful I am, and how delighted. Is the house here?"
"Mademoiselle, I do not truly know what to do. _It is an empty house._"
"So much the better."
"But you are not afraid?"
"Oh, no, no, not at all. Has it any furniture?"
"Very little. We will see."
He pulled the bell at an iron railing, and the gate opened. A beautiful face looked out of the window, and a young woman called: "_Eh bien!
More_ officers? I told you, _mon lieutenant_, we have not room for one more."
"Now, come, come, Elsie! Not so sharp. It is for the house opposite this time. Have you the key?"
"But the house opposite is empty."
"It will not be when I have put mademoiselle into it."
"Alone?"
"Of course."
The young _concierge,_ under the impression that he was certainly installing his mistress, left the window, and came through the gate with a look of impish reproof in her eyes.
Together they crossed the road and she fitted the key into a green iron door let into the face of a yellow wall. Within was a courtyard, leading to a garden, and from the courtyard, steps in an inner wall led up into the house.
"All this ... all this mine?"
"All yours, mademoiselle."
The garden, a deserted tangle of fruit trees and bushes, fallen statues, arbours and gra.s.s lawn brown with fallen leaves, was walled in by a high wall which kept it from every eye but heaven"s. The house was large, the staircase wide and low, the rooms square and high, filled with windows and painted in dusty shades of cream. In every room as they pa.s.sed through them lay a drift of broken and soiled furniture as brown and mouldering as the leaves upon the lawn.
"Who lived here?"
"Who lived here?" echoed the _concierge_, and a strange look pa.s.sed over her face. "Many men. Austrians, Turks, Bulgarians, Germans...."