"I am fairly rich," said Norman, "but I have not seen your daughter long enough to decide about marriage."
"You are rich and you want to find a room here?"
"Yes, please."
"And food?"
"Yes, food, too."
"You will find it rather simple living. You would live much better at the hotel."
"I would rather be here," said Norman. "I like to have people to talk to; I do not like hotels."
"Well, you might as well come in and see the room."
She showed him a small bedroom, almost entirely filled by an enormous curtained bed. It was a pretty room, papered in pale blue, ornamented with cuttings from French illustrated papers, a statuette of a nakedish lady apparently eight feet high, called Mignon, an oleograph representing a romantic northern castle surrounded by impossible waterfalls, and a clock which had been for many years too tired to work. Peronella it was who drew up the sunblinds and let in the pure air, for which the room thirsted. There was a view over the red roofs right out to sea.
Norman expressed himself delighted. He settled the terms, and paid in advance for a month. He arranged to have meals with the family; he did not want to be lonely, and wanted to learn Alsandrian. All this obviously pleased the old lady, and Norman, too tired even to walk about in the city, shut himself up and slept, to the disgust of Peronella, till the late afternoon.