"This is not an inn."
"No, but it's a house," I cried, defiantly. "I must have shelter. I can pay for it."
A man's voice chuckled—what a mirthless chuckle it was!—the window was banged down with a thud, and I had seized the knocker to hammer again, when the entrance-hall blazed into light, and the door was opened.
A gust of wind threw me forward, and as I recovered myself and stepped across the threshold I caught my breath in amazement, for I, who have viewed the mansions of the greatest, never before beheld such barbaric splendor. It was an entrance-hall fit for the palace of a prince, and lighted with enormous clusters of incandescent lamps.
My wretched rain-soaked dress was making pools upon the parquetry, and I moved to a rug and surveyed my host, who was as striking as his surroundings—a tall, thin individual, with long, gray, straggling hair that hung round his shoulders, and a wild, unkempt beard. His eyes, which flashed fiercely, and seemed to read one through and through, were overhung by heavy, jet-black eyebrows.
He looked the very embodiment of Eugene Sue's Wanderer, and yet he was politeness personified, for his eyes did not turn to the pools upon the polished floor, nor to the wet trail I had made with my bedraggled skirt.
"I am favored, madame," he said, bowing, with a thin, transparent hand upon his breast.
"And I am cold and wet and hungry," I answered, prosaically, for I was determined to be in no wise awed by these unexpected surroundings.
"Three evils so easily remedied that it is scarcely worth designating them even as evils," he replied; and then, with another bow, escorted me up the staircase into a spacious corridor, were he opened a door, and stood aside for me to enter.
"I have so many guests to-night," he murmured, apologetically, "that I fear I cannot treat you as I would wish; but you will find all your needs supplied in the dressing-room beyond."