“Madame,” I responded, “I wish you a good evening. I desire a room for the night in the Hotel of the Three Kings.”
“To accommodate monsieur,” she assured me warmly, “will be a pleasure. Monsieur is an artist without doubt?”
I wanted to say “Et tu, Brute!” but I didn’t. When one came to think of it, I had no very good reason to advance for having appeared at Bleau. It wasn’t the sort of place into which one would drop from the skies by pure chance, either. I was lucky to find a ready-made explanation.
“But assuredly,” said I.
She disappeared into the kitchen, returned immediately with a candle, and led me up the stone staircase on the left of the courtyard, talking volubly all the while.
“We have had many artists here,” she declared; “many friends of monsieur, doubtless. Since monsieur is of that fine profession, his room will be but four francs daily; his dinner, three francs; his little breakfast, a franc alone.”
“Madame,” I responded, “it is plain that the high cost of living, which terrorizes my country, does not exist at Bleau.”
Equally plain, I thought pessimistically, was the explanation. My saddest forebodings were realized; if the name of the hotel meant anything and three kings ever tarried here, that conjunction of sovereigns had put up with housing of a distinctly primitive sort. My room was clean, I acknowledged thankfully, but that was all I could say for it. I eyed the bowl and pitcher gloomily, the hard-looking bed, the tiny square of carpeting in the center of the stone floor.
“Your house, Madame,” I suggested craftily, with a view to reconnoissance, “is, of course, full?”
She heaved a sigh.