Of all the family Cæsar conceived that Mlle. Cadet was the most intelligent. She was a French country girl, very jovial, blond, with a turned-up nose, and on the whole insignificant looking. When she spoke, her voice had certain falsetto inflexions that were very comical.
Mlle. Cadet was on to everything the moment it happened. Cæsar asked her jokingly about the people in the hotel, and he was thunderstruck to find that she had discovered in three or four days who all the guests were and where they came from.
Mlle. Cadet also told him that Carminatti had sent an ardent declaration of love to the Sandoval girl the first day he saw her.
“The devil!” exclaimed Cæsar. “What an inflammable Neapolitan it is! And what did she reply?”
“What would she reply? Nothing.”
“As you are already familiar with everything going on here,” said Cæsar, “I am going to ask you a question: what is the noise in the court every night? I am always thinking of asking somebody.”
“Why, it is charging the accumulator of the lift,” replied Mlle. Cadet.
“You have relieved me from a terrible doubt which worried me.”
“I have never heard a noise,” said Mlle. de Sandoval, breaking into the conversation.
“That’s because your room is on the square,” Cæsar answered, “and the noise is in the court; on the poor side of the house.”