“Good. Will you step into my carriage?”
“My own carriage is here: I will seek it, and accompany you.”
“Be pleased, then, to follow us.” And he named his address: “The Hôtel Crécy, in the Rue Crécy.”
We followed; the carriage drove fast; myself and Graham were silent. This seemed like an adventure.
Some little time being lost in seeking our own equipage, we reached the hotel perhaps about ten minutes after these strangers. It was an hotel in the foreign sense: a collection of dwelling-houses, not an inn—a vast, lofty pile, with a huge arch to its street-door, leading through a vaulted covered way, into a square all built round.
We alighted, passed up a wide, handsome public staircase, and stopped at Numéro 2 on the second landing; the first floor comprising the abode of I know not what “prince Russe,” as Graham informed me. On ringing the bell at a second great door, we were admitted to a suite of very handsome apartments. Announced by a servant in livery, we entered a drawing-room whose hearth glowed with an English fire, and whose walls gleamed with foreign mirrors. Near the hearth appeared a little group: a slight form sunk in a deep arm-chair, one or two women busy about it, the iron-grey gentleman anxiously looking on.
“Where is Harriet? I wish Harriet would come to me,” said the girlish voice, faintly.
“Where is Mrs. Hurst?” demanded the gentleman impatiently and somewhat sternly of the man-servant who had admitted us.
“I am sorry to say she is gone out of town, sir; my young lady gave her leave till to-morrow.”
“Yes—I did—I did. She is gone to see her sister; I said she might go: I remember now,” interposed the young lady; “but I am so sorry, for Manon and Louison cannot understand a word I say, and they hurt me without meaning to do so.”