While this conversation was going on the rest of the comedians had alighted, and were already being conducted to their respective rooms by several servants. The one given to Isabelle was a little apart from the others—those in their immediate vicinity being occupied—which was not displeasing to the modest young girl, who was often greatly annoyed and embarrassed by the promiscuous, free-and-easy way of getting on, inseparable from such a Bohemian life. She always accepted the inevitable with a good grace, and never complained of the vexation she felt at being obliged to share her bed-chamber with Serafina or the duenna, or perhaps both; but it was a luxury she had scarcely dared to hope for to have her room entirely to herself, and moreover sufficiently distant from her companions to insure her a good deal of privacy. In a marvellously short space of time the whole town had become acquainted with the news of the arrival of the comedians, and the young men of wealth and fashion began flocking to the hotel, to drink a bottle of Maître Bilot’s wine, and question him about the beauty and charms of the actresses; curling up the points of their mustaches as they did so with such an absurdly conceited, insolent air of imaginary triumph, that the worthy landlord could not help laughing in his sleeve at them as he gave his discreet, mysterious answers, accompanied by significant gestures calculated to turn the silly heads of these dandified young calves, and make them wild with curiosity and impatience.