“Saint Étienne,” said Artegui to the driver of the omnibus, who, seated on the box, his head turned toward them, was waiting for orders.
The horses set off at a heavy trot, and the vehicle rolled along through the well-paved streets until it reached a house with a narrow door, marble steps flanked by consumptive-looking plants in pots, and bright gas-lamps, before which it stopped.
A fair, tall woman, neatly dressed, wearing a freshly ironed pleated cap, came to the door to receive them and hastened to give Artegui’s valise to a waiter.
“The lady and gentleman would like to have a room?” she murmured in French, in mellifluous and obsequious tones.
“Two,” answered Artegui laconically.
“Two,” she repeated in Spanish, although with a transpyrenean accent. “And would the lady and gentleman like them connected?”
“Entirely separate.”
“Tout à fait. They shall be prepared.”
The landlady called a chambermaid, no less neat and obliging than herself, who, taking two keys from the board on which were hanging the keys of the hotel, ascended the waxed stairs, followed by Artegui and Lucía.
She stopped on the third landing, a little out of breath, and opening the doors of two rooms adjoining each other, but separate, struck a match, lighted the candles on the chimney-piece of each and then withdrew. Artegui and Lucía stood silent for a few moments at the doors of their respective rooms; at last, the former said: