“Very well,” replied I with an air of great discontent, and walking towards the door. On turning round, before quitting the apartment, I perceived Florentine still seated at table with several of the younger part of the company round her who were drinking Cardinal.[1] “Oh, if the girl were not so provokingly pretty!” sighed I to myself, as I followed Lewis, one of the most active of the waiters, to my room up stairs.
“This is a fine house,” began I to Lewis, wishing to engage the fellow in conversation, with the design of pumping something out of him. “There must be twenty rooms at least on each side of this passage.”
“Twenty!” rejoined Lewis, with a triumphant air, “la, sir, there are thirty-six! And one needs good legs I assure you, sir, to attend to them all through the day; before evening one is quite knocked up.”
“Thirty-six rooms!” I reechoed as if I had never heard of an inn with such extensive accommodation. “And are all these rooms for strangers?”
“Every one of them,” answered the indefatigable Lewis, “except No. 1, where master and his wife sleep, and No. 2, which is Miss Florentine’s apartment.”
“And No. 3—” I began, anxiously expecting to hear that it was reserved for Mr Blum.
“No. 3, is presently occupied by the major of hussars, who came late yesterday evening,” replied the fellow, opening the door of the room immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the lobby.
I now paced up and down my room quite out of temper. I had never been so much struck by any girl’s appearance as by Florentine’s; and now to witness her insufferable giddiness, her want of female dignity, her imprudence! And then
- ↑ A very pleasant beverage made of hock, bitter oranges, and sugar.
