hed, shabby place.

The concierge replied to the Prince, however, when he asked for
Jacquemin: "Yes, Monsieur, on the fifth floor, the door to the right;"
and Zilah mounted the dark stairs.

When he reached the fifth floor, he did not yet believe it possible that
the Jacquemin who lived there was the one he had seen the day before, the
one whom Baroness Dinati petted, "our witty colleague Jacquemin."

He knocked, however, at the door on the right, as he had been directed.
No one came to open it; but he could hear within footsteps and indistinct
cries. He then perceived that there was a bell-rope, and he pulled it.
Immediately he heard some one approaching from within.

He felt a singular sensation of concentrated anger, united to a fear that
the Jacquemin he was in search of was not there.

The door opened, and a woman appeared, young, rather pale, with pretty
blond hair, somewhat disheveled, and dressed in a black skirt, with a
white dressing-sack thrown over her shoulders.

She smiled mechanically as she opened the door, and, as she saw a strange
face, she blushed crimson, and pulled her sack together beneath her chin,
fastening it with a pin.

"Monsieur Jacquemin?" said Andras, taking off his hat.

"Yes, Monsieur, he lives here," replied the young woman, a little
astonished.

"Monsieur Jacquemin, the journalist?" asked Andras.

"Yes, yes, Monsieur," she answered with a proud little smile, which Zilah
was not slow to notice. She now opened the door wide, and said, stepping
aside to let the visitor pass:

"Will you take the trouble to come in, Monsieur?" She was not accustomed
to receive calls (Jacquemin always making his appointments at the
office); but, as the stranger might be some one who brought her husband
work, as she called it, she was anxious not to let him go away before she
knew what his errand was.

"Please come in, Monsieur!"

The Prince entered, and, crossing the entry in two steps, found himself
in a small dining-room opening directly out of the kitchen, where three
tiny little children were playing, the youngest, who could not have been
more than eighteen months, crawling about on the floor. Upon the ragged
oilcloth which covered the table, Zilah noticed two pairs of men's
gloves, one gray, the other yellow, and a heap of soiled white cravats.
Upon a wooden chair, by the open door of the kitchen, was a tub full of
shirts, which the young woman had doubtless been washing when the bell
ran