Theobald, to the last, had kept his lodging a mystery, and I was
altogether at a loss where to look for him. The simplest course was to
make inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato Vecchio, and I confess that
unsatisfied curiosity as to the lady herself counselled it as well.
Perhaps I had done her injustice, and she was as immortally fresh and
fair as be conceived her. I was, at any rate, anxious to behold once
more the ripe enchantress who had made twenty years pass as a
twelvemonth. I repaired accordingly, one morning, to her abode, climbed
the interminable staircase, and reached her door. It stood ajar, and as
I hesitated whether to enter, a little serving-maid came clattering out
with an empty kettle, as if she had just performed some savoury errand.
The inner door, too, was open; so I crossed the little vestibule and
entered the room in which I had formerly been received. It had not its
evening aspect. The table, or one end of it, was spread for a late
breakfast, and before it sat a gentleman--an individual, at least, of the
male sex--doing execution upon a beefsteak and onions, and a bottle of
wine.
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