“Monsieur Maxime!” they said with one voice.
“I bring,” said M. de Brevan, “my young kinswoman, of whom I told you, Miss Henrietta.”
If Henrietta had had the slightest knowledge of Parisian customs, she would have guessed from the bows of the concierge, and the courtesies of his wife, how liberally they had been rewarded in advance.
“The young lady’s room is quite ready,” said the man.
“My husband has arranged every thing himself,” broke in his wife; “it was no trifle, after the papering had been done. And I—I made a fine fire there as early as five o’clock, to take out the dampness.”
“Let us go up then,” said Brevan.
The concierge and his wife, however, were economical people; and the gas on the stairs had long since been put out.
“Give me a candlestick, Chevassat,” said the woman to her husband.
And with her lighted candle she went ahead, lighting M. de Brevan and Henrietta, and stopping at every landing to praise the neatness of the house. At last, in the fifth story, at the entrance to a dark passage, she opened a door, and said,—
“Here we are! The young lady will see how nice it is.”