"Three flights, M'sieu', in the front; suite seventeen it is. M'sieu' does not mind walking up?" she inquired.
M'sieu' did not in the least, though by no strain of the imagination could it, be truthfully said that he walked up those steep and redolent stairways of the Hôtel du Commerce d'Anvers. More literally, he flew with winged feet, spurning each third padded step with a force that raised a tiny cloud of fine white dust from the carpeting.
Breathless, at last he paused at the top of the third flight. His heart was hammering, his pulses drumming like wild things; there was a queer constriction in his throat, a fire of hope in his heart alternating with the ice of doubt. Suppose she were not there! What if he were mistaken, what if he had misunderstood, what if Mulready and Calendar had referred to another lodging-house?
Pausing, he gripped the balustrade fiercely, forcing his self-control, forcing himself to reflect that the girl (presuming, for the sake of argument, he were presently to find her) could not be expected to understand how ardently he had discounted this moment of meeting, or how strangely it affected him. Indeed, he himself was more than a little disturbed by the latter phenomenon, though he was no longer blind to its cause. But he was not to let her see the evidences of his agitation, lest she be frightened.
Slowly schooling himself to assume a masque of illuding self-possession and composure, he passed down the corridor to the door whose panels wore the painted legend, 17; and there knocked.
Believing that he overheard from within a sudden startled exclamation, he smiled patiently, tolerant of her surprise.
Burning with impatience as with a fever, he endured a long minute's wait.
Misgivings were prompting him to knock again and summon her by name, when he heard footfalls on the other side of the door, followed by a click of the lock. The door was opened grudgingly, a bare six inches.
Of the alarmed expression in the eyes that stared into his, he took no account. His face lengthened a little as he stood there, dumb, panting, staring; and his heart sank, down, deep down into a gulf of disappointment, weighted sorely with chagrin.
Then, of the two the first to recover countenance, he doffed his cap and bowed.