Then she related the history of her fruitless application for board and lodging at Mrs. Cartwright’s. Hans laughed loud and long at the recital. ‘Ach, was!’ he cried. ‘It is a mercy that she refused you. The idea of you there! Why, they do not get enough to eat--so I am told--and are expected to dress for dinner and appear in the drawing-room in the evening, whether they wish it or not. Mrs. Cartwright is by way of holding a kind of _salon_. Yes, you may laugh--it is true. And there are people fools enough to like it, or to think they do, and to call it “very nice.” That is what all the English girls say,’ he added, looking gravely at Minna, as if he had been entirely free from any English taint. ‘I have heard them so often--before the Dying Gaul, the Apollo Belvedere, the Medusa Morente, the Apoxiomene, under the Dome of the Pantheon, and under that of St. Peter--the effect of the two being much the same--on the Appian Way, in front of the milliners’ windows--“very nice, oh, very nice!”’ ‘Come, come, sir, and what of your German _Mädchen_? “Ach Gott, wie reizend! nein, wie entzückend schön! Das ist ja zu nett.” I can cap you at that game.’ They both laughed. Then he said suddenly: ‘Look here, Minna, why couldn’t you come and put up where I am staying? Temporarily, I mean, unless you like it so much that you decide to remain. I have often told you about it. It is central, it is cosmopolitan, it is not too dear; in fact, it ain’t dear at all. If it were, I should not be there, as you know, on the governor’s allowance. It is anything but aristocratic, that is true. It isn’t even _collet-montée_, though there’s nothing in the world that you need fight shy of--and it is fun, which is a great thing. Mrs. Cartwright’s isn’t. I can tell you that. I should be on the spot--your slave, as ever, and ready to tramp all over Rome with you till you have found what you want in the shape of an _appartamento_. Moreover, it is not full to overflowing. It seldom is, though there are several people there. There are some good rooms to let--they have good rooms there, if they have nothing else. Come and try it.’ ‘Verily, you tempt me. It might be amusing. My rooms were so comfortable that it was impossible to think of them in connection with amusement. Let me see--what is it called?’ ‘It is called Signora or Madame Dietrich--Casa Dietrich. She was married to a German first.’ ‘First? How many more times has she been married since the first?’ ‘Not one. She’s a widow, is Signora Dietrich--a widow given to spending more money than she has got. But that is a trifle. It is number seventeen, Piazza Bocca della Verità----’ ‘Bocca della Verità--really Hans, I don’t want to live next door to Santa Maria in Cosmedin.’