urtains, and the
elegant furniture, and the silver all belong to her! Only hired, my
dear sir! They don't even belong to me, for I have never rented
furnished rooms; one can easily lose one's good name through people who
don't even own their own beds. My name is Sturzmueller, and I've had
this house these ten years; I'm a widow I'd have you know, and no man
can breathe a word against me, and as for the aristocratic young lady
up stairs, if I don't soon find out all about her, I'll ask her a price
that will astonish her. I want no lodgers over whom people shake their
heads and say 'it is a pity'!"

So saying she walked sturdily down stairs past Edwin, and seemed to
have finished all that she had to say.

But now it was his turn to pause.

"So you, too, do not know what to make of this wonderful vision?" he
asked in feigned surprise, while his heart beat violently from
excitement. "Surely she has not concealed her name!"

The woman turned and looked again at her interrogator, as if to judge
from his appearance if he was really as innocent as his questions would
imply, or some cunning spy who wanted to draw her out. But his honest
face, as well as his plain yet respectable attire, appeared to allay
her suspicions.

"Her name!" she muttered. "What do I care for a name? Toinette
Marchand--can't anybody call herself that and yet in reality bear a
name quite unlike it? Besides, it's none of my business what my lodgers
call themselves, provided I know where they come from and what they
are. But this one, why, would you believe it! during all this fortnight
I am not a whit the wiser as to whether she is really a respectable
person, or a bit of plated ware; you understand? The truth is, I rented
the rooms in the second story to Count ----, --but I must not mention
his name--who had them furnished in this way, for a cousin, he said.
What he meant by a 'cousin' one can easily guess, but we can't reform
the world, sir, and if I were to play conscience-keeper to my lodgers,
I should have enough to do. So at last everything was finished, as
pretty as a doll's house; it must have cost the count a pile of money!
and, after all, the cousin snapped her fingers at him and gave him the
slip. It was some one belonging to the opera-house, the valet
afterwards told me; a light-minded creature, who ran away one fine day
with a Russian. Well, it was all the same to me. I received my rent
regularly every quarter, could walk over the beauti