Eleanor, leading the major—who was of about as much use to her as a blind man is to his dog—succeeded at last in finding the house which boasted Monsieur Victor Bourdon amongst its inhabitants. I say “amongst” advisedly; for as there was the office of a popular bi-weekly periodical upon the first floor, a greengrocer in the rez-de-chaussée, a hairdresser, who professed to cut and friz the hair, on the second story, and a mysterious lady, whose calling was represented by a faded pictorial board, resident somewhere under the roof, the commercial traveller was a very unimportant inhabitant, an insignificant nomad, replaced to-day by a student en droit, to-morrow by a second-rate actor at a fifth-rate theatre.
Eleanor found this when she came to make inquiries of the portress as to the possibility of seeing Monsieur Bourdon. This lady, who was knitting, and whose very matronly contour made it impossible for her to see her knitting-needles, told Eleanor that Monsieur Bourdon was very unlikely to be at home at that time. He was apt to return late at night, upon the two hours, in effect, between two wines, and at those times he was enough abrupt, and was evidently by no means a favourite with madame the portress. But on looking into a dusky corner where some keys were hanging upon a row of rusty nails, madame informed Eleanor that Monsieur Bourdon was at home, as his key was not amongst the rest, and it was his habit to leave it in her care when he went out. The portress seemed very much struck by this discovery, for she remarked that the last time she had seen Monsieur Bourdon go out had been early in the morning of Sunday, and that she did not remember having seen him reenter.
But upon this a brisk young person of twelve or thirteen, who was busy getting up fine linen in the recesses of the lodge, cried out in a very shrill voice that Monsieur Bourdon had returned before mid-day on Sunday, looking a little ill, and dragging himself with a fatigued air.
He was at home, then, the portress exclaimed; at least she did not utter any equivalent to our English word home, and in that evinced considerable wisdom, since a French lodging is a place so utterly unhomelike, that the meanest second-floor at Islington or Chelsea, presided over by the most unconscionable of British landladies, becomes better than all the pleasures and palaces we can roam amidst—and it is not everybody who has the chance of roaming amidst pleasures and palaces—by the very force of comparison. Monsieur was chez lui, the portress said, and would madame ascend? Monsieur’s apartment was on the entresol, with windows giving upon the street. Madame would see a black door facing her upon the first landing.
Eleanor went up a short flight of steps, followed by the major. She knocked upon the panel of the black door—once, twice, three times; but there was no answer.
“I’d lay a fiver the feller’s gone out again,” the major exclaimed; “that jabbering Frenchwoman didn’t seem to know what she was talking about.”
But Eleanor knocked a fourth time, and very much louder than she had knocked before. There was no answer even this time; but a voice was heard within, blaspheming aloud with horrible French execrations that seemed to freeze Eleanor’s blood as she listened to them.
She did listen to them involuntarily, as people often listen in a crowded thoroughfare to the obnoxious clamour of a drunken man, paralyzed for the moment by the horror of his hideous oaths.
Eleanor turned very pale, and looked despairingly at the major.
“Hark!” she whispered; “he is quarrelling with some one.”