Out of this apartment the landlord came bustling, a lean man with a sharp face, and a habit of sniffing. He came bowing, and rubbing his dry hands together, but when he saw that his visitor was quite unattended, his manner changed, and he asked her in a curt way what she wanted.
She was unaccustomed to meet with incivility, and instinctively she stiffened. She replied in her quiet, well-bred voice, that she had alighted from the stage, and required a bed-chamber.
Like the guard, the landlord eyed her up and down, but in his glance was no friendliness, but a distinct look of contempt. Solitary females travelling by stage were not wont to put up at his inn, which was a house catering for the nobility and gentry. He asked warily whether her abigail was outside, with her baggage, and perceived at once, from her sudden flush and downcast eyes, that she had no abigail, and probably no baggage either.
Until this humiliating moment Miss Challoner had not considered her extremely barren state. She knew quite well in what a light she must appear, and it took all her resolution not to turn and run ignominiously away.
Her fingers clasped her reticule tightly. She lifted her head, and said calmly: “There has been an accident, and my baggage is unhappily left behind me at Dijon. I expect it to-morrow. Meanwhile I require a bed-chamber, and some supper. A bowl of broth in my room will suffice.”
It was quite evident that the landlord did not place any belief in the existence of Miss Challoner’s baggage. “You have come to the wrong inn,” he said. “There is a place down the street for the likes of you.”
He encountered a look from Miss Challoner’s fine grey eyes that made him suddenly nervous lest her story might after all be true. But at this moment he was reinforced by the arrival of his wife, a dame as stout as he was lean, who demanded to know what the young person wanted.
He repeated Miss Challoner’s story to her. The dame set her arms akimbo, and gave vent to a short bark of laughter. “A very likely tale,” she said. “You’d best be off to the Chat Griz, my girl. The Rayon d’Or does not honour persons of your quality. Baggage in Dijon indeed!”
It did not seem as though an appeal to this scornful lady would be of avail. Miss Challoner said steadily: “I find you impertinent, my good woman. I am English, travelling to rejoin my friends in the neighbourhood, and although I am aware that the loss of my baggage must appear strange to you — ”
“Vastly strange, mademoiselle, I assure you. The English are all mad, sans doute, but we have had many of them at the Rayon d’Or, and they are not so mad that they permit their ladies to journey alone on the diligence. Come, now, be off with you! There is no lodging for you here, I can tell you. Such a tale! If you are English, you will be some serving-maid, very likely dismissed for some fault. The Chat Griz will give you a bed.”