Dinner was served in a vast and sombre hall whose darkly panelled walls
and high-beamed ceiling bred a multitude of shadows that danced about
the table a weird, spasmodic saraband, without meaning or end,
restlessly advancing and retreating as the candles flickered, failed
and flared in the gusty draughts.

There was (Duchemin learned) no other means of illumination but by
candle-light in the entire château. The time-old structure had been
thoroughly renovated and modernised in most respects, it was furnished
with taste and reverence (one could guess whose the taste and purse)
but Madame de Sévénié remained its undisputed chatelaine, a belated
spirit of the ancien régime, stubbornly set against the conveniences of
this degenerate age. Electric lighting she would never countenance. The
telephone she esteemed a convenience for tradespeople and vulgarians in
general, beneath the dignity of leisured quality. The motor car she
disapproved yet tolerated because, for all her years, she was of a
brisk and active turn and liked to get about, whereas since the War
good horseflesh was difficult to find in France and men to care for it
more scarce still.

So much, and more besides, she communicated to Duchemin at intervals
during the meal, comporting herself toward him with graciousness not
altogether innocent of a certain faded coquetry. Having spoken of
herself as one born too late for her time, she paused and eyed him
keenly, a gleam of light malice in her bright old eyes.

"And you, too, monsieur," she added suddenly. "But you, I think, belong
to an even earlier day..."