“Well,” said the landlord, “the room is his for a week, and he can come back when he gets ready. He paid me in advance. If he doesn’t come back when his time is up, I shall lock up his effects and charge him for storage until I get my money,” said the landlord.
“No doubt but you will do that,” said the Lieutenant, “but I am a little anxious to know what has become of him. Do you know when he went out? I hope no harm has come to him.”
“I went to bed early last night,” said the landlord, “but I will ask some of the servants.”
Inquiry failed to find any one who had seen Mr. Fortier leave the hotel, and Lieutenant Duquesne was obliged to content himself with the reflection that possibly the young man had started at once to perform the mission which he had intrusted to him. Once more, he went in search of the landlord:
“If my friend, Mr. Fortier, doesn’t come back at the end of the week, I wish you to lock the door, leaving the articles therein just where he left them. I will be responsible for the rent of the room, at least until our vessel sails.”
“It doesn’t make any difference who pays the bills, so long as I get my money,” said the landlord.
Lieutenant Duquesne ascertained the shortest road which would lead him to the Batistelli castle, and, having secured a saddle-horse, started to perform the mission which Admiral Enright had intrusted to him—the presentation of a letter of introduction which he bore from Lord Colton, the Admiral’s cousin.
Pascal Batistelli received the young man graciously. The head of the house of Batistelli was a man about forty years of age, with a naturally constrained expression and a forbidding manner; but he was well versed in the requirements of polite society, and he probably remembered that, when he had visited London, many years before, in search of Manuel Della Coscia and his son, soon after the death of his father, he had received many attentions and much assistance from Lord Colton, to whom he had been introduced by the French ambassador. The time had now come for him to reciprocate the courtesy, and he assured Lieutenant Duquesne that it would give him great pleasure to receive Admiral Enright and his daughter as his guests, and he added, as the thought came to him that this young man might be a suitor, or possibly the accepted lover, of the Admiral’s daughter:
“It would give me additional pleasure, my dear Lieutenant, if you, also, would accept the hospitality of my house.”
The Lieutenant thanked him and said that, if it was the Admiral’s wish and that of his daughter, he would be pleased to accept. The two gentlemen parted with mutual expressions of esteem and regard, although their acquaintance had been of very short duration, but such expressions are a part of the social code, and may mean more or less, as the case may be.