She woke, a mixture of courage and philosophy.
"I can stand anything, and beyond a certain limit misfortune makes me laugh. But there's no reason why I should stand this!" The key and padlock idea was rejected as a compromise with happiness.
"No, no, let us see if we can get something better to lock up than that bird." He looked uncommonly dead by daylight.
"I would rather lock up an empty room, and leave it pure when I must leave it!"
Dressing, she went quickly down the street to the Bureau de la Place. The clerks and secretaries nodded and smiled at each other, and bent their heads over their typewriters when she looked at them.
She drummed upon the table with her fingers and the clerks and secretaries winked and nodded more meaningly than ever.
"_Entrez_, mademoiselle. He will see you."
The red-haired lieutenant with pince-nez was upon his feet looking at her curiously as she entered the adjoining room.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. There is something wrong with the billet that I found you yesterday?"
She looked at him. In his pale-blue eyes there was a beam; in his creased mouth there was an upward curve. The story of legitimate complaint that she had prepared drooped in her mind; she looked at him a little longer, hesitated, then, risking everything:
"Monsieur, there is a stuffed owl in the room."
He did not wince. "Take it out, mademoiselle."
"H'm, yes. I cannot see heaven except through orange glass."
Then he failed her; he was a busy, sensible man.
"Mademoiselle, I find you a billet, I instal you, and you come to me in the middle of the morning with this ridiculous story of an owl. It isn't reasonable...."
The door opened and his superior officer walked in, a stern captain with no crease about his mouth, no beam in his olive eye.
Ah, now ... Now the lieutenant had but to turn to his superior officer and she would indeed be rent, and reasonably so.
"What is the matter?" said the newcomer. "Is something fresh needed?"
The billeting lieutenant never hesitated a second.
"_Mon capitaine_, unfortunately the billet found yesterday for this lady is unsuitable. The owner of the house returns this week, and needs the room."
"Yes, _mon capitaine_, in the Rue de Clèves."
"None. Follow me, mademoiselle, the street is near. I will take you to the _concierge_."