And he proceeded to pour into Maurice's ear some account of the sensational event which had that day formed the one topic of conversation in the little village.
It will be as well, perhaps, to take the story out of his hands and to give in a few words a résumé of what, with interruptions and circumlocutions manifold, the landlord made comprehensible at last to his new guest.
It seemed that a few days before the Englishman's arrival several travellers had put up at the hotel, apparently with the intention of staying there some time.
The first party consisted of only two, an elderly gentleman who appeared to be in a bad state of health, and a child strikingly lovely if the impassioned description of the landlord was at all worthy of belief.
They took three rooms en suite, and the little lady was to be constantly attended by one of the chambermaids.
Later in the same day the second party arrived. It consisted of two gentlemen and a lady, all of whom gave Austria as their country. The lady, a peculiarly proud and beautiful woman, seemed to be the wife of one of the gentlemen, but they both treated her with a tolerable amount of carelessness.
For two days these different families had remained in the hotel without meeting or having any intercourse one with the other, for the elderly gentleman had been suffering so acutely that he never left his room, and the child would not leave his side.
On the third or fourth day he appeared at the table d'hôte, accompanied by the little girl, and seats were placed for them exactly opposite to those occupied by the Austrians. The lady and one of the gentlemen were already seated when they entered.
One of the waiters, it appeared, was a particularly observant character, though, indeed, there are always observant characters at hand when such are found convenient, and a waiter's life at some large hotel is specially favorable to the cultivation of this habit of mind. Many a waiter might frame exciting romances, the materials drawn simply from the sphere of his own observations. The waiter in question was German, a man of an inquiring turn of mind, and specially given to the study of character. Some peculiarity of countenance, as he afterward declared, led him to look rather attentively at the dark, handsome face of the Austrian lady. Lost in his favorite study, he forgot to notice, by the necessary bustle, the drawing out of chairs and readjustment of knives and forks, the entry of the elderly Frenchman and his fair-haired child. He could not, therefore, have been mistaken in his assertion that as the lady lifted her eyes from her plate and caught a glimpse of the new arrival, her face became suddenly convulsed. She started violently, first flushed crimson, then turned as pale as death.