His movements were hasty, as though he desired to escape from some impression; his voice, when he spoke, was vague.
"Very nice! Very nice!" he said.

"And--and what is the view ?" "The view?
Oh, but monsieur will like the view!" Jean stepped to the window, drew back the heavy cretonne curtains, and threw open the long window, admitting a breath of chilling cold.

"The court-yard! See, monsieur! The court-yard!" The boy came forward into the biting air and gazed down into the well-like depths of gloom, at the bottom of which could be discerned a small flagged court, ornamented by a couple of dwarfed and frost-bitten trees in painted tubs.
Jean, watchful of the visitor's face, broke forth anew with inexhaustible tact.
'It was a fine view--monsieur would admit that! But, naturally, it was not the street! Now No.

107, across the corridor--at five francs-- ?' Monsieur was aroused.

"No! No! certainly not.