Still, I thought I had better go and see.
Next day about six o'clock I took a cab to the Rue des Moines,
but dismissed it at the corner, since I preferred to walk to the
hotel and look at it before I went in. It was a street of
small shops subservient to the needs of poor people, and about
the middle of it, on the left as I walked down, was the Hotel
des Belges. My own hotel was modest enough, but it was
magnificent in comparison with this. It was a tall, shabby
building, that cannot have been painted for years, and it had
so bedraggled an air that the houses on each side of it looked
neat and clean. The dirty windows were all shut. It was not
here that Charles Strickland lived in guilty splendour with
the unknown charmer for whose sake he had abandoned honour and duty.
I was vexed, for I felt that I had been made a fool of,
and I nearly turned away without making an enquiry. I went in
only to be able to tell Mrs. Strickland that I had done my best.
The door was at the side of a shop. It stood open, and just
within was a sign:
I walked up narrow
stairs, and on the landing found a sort of box, glassed in,
within which were a desk and a couple of chairs.
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