It was a large, very handsome house, and Gladys, young as she was, said at once to herself that the English ladies, as she had got into the way of calling them, must be _very_ very rich. For she did not understand that in Paris one enormous house, such as the one she was standing before, contains the dwellings of several families, each of which is often as large as a good-sized English house, only without stairs once you have entered, as all the rooms are on one floor.
"I wonder which is the front door," said Gladys. "There seem so many in there." For the great doors of the entrance-court stood open, and, peeping in, it seemed to her that there was nothing but doors on every side to be seen.
"We must ask," she at last said resolutely, and foraging in her pocket she again drew forth the crumpled piece of paper with "No. 9 Avenue Gérard," and armed with this marched in.
A man started up from somewhere--indeed he had been already watching them, though they had not seen him. He was the porter for the whole house.
"What do you want--whom are you looking for?" he said. At first, thinking they _were_ little beggars or something of the kind, for the courtyard was not very light, he had come out meaning to drive them away. But when he came nearer them he saw they were not what he had thought, and he spoke therefore rather more civilly. Still, he never thought of saying "Mademoiselle" to Gladys--no children of the upper classes would be wandering about alone! Gladys's only answer was to hold out the bit of paper.
"Avenue Gérard, No. 9," read the man. "Yes, it is quite right--it is here. But there is no name. Who is it you want?"
"The English ladies," replied Gladys in her own tongue, which she still seemed to think everybody should understand. She had gathered the meaning of the man's words, helped thereto by his gesticulations.
"The English ladies--I don't know their name."
Only one word was comprehensible by the porter.
"English," he repeated, using of course the French word for "English." "It must be the English ladies on the second floor they want. No doubt they are some of the poor English those ladies are so kind to. And yet--" he looked at them dubiously. They didn't quite suit his description. Anyway, there was but one answer to give. "The ladies were out; the children must come again another day."