observatory.

On the north side of the hall a broad staircase descended from the
gallery to the tiled floor, in the midst of which a fountain played
beneath a cupola supported by slender columns. On the west the recess
beneath the gallery had been deepened to admit a truly ample fireplace,
with a flat hearthstone and andirons. Here were screens and rich Turkey
rugs, and here the Bayfield household ordinarily had the lamps set
after dinner and gathered before the fire, talking little, enjoying the
long pauses filled with the hiss of logs and the monotonous drip and
trickle of water in the penumbra.

To-day the prisoners--two hundred in all--crowded the floor, the
stairs, even the deep gallery above; but on the south side, facing the
staircase, two heavy curtains had been looped back from the atrium,
and there a ray of wintry sunshine fell through the glass roof upon
the famous Bayfield pavement and the figure of Narcissus gravely
expounding it.

He had reached his peroration, and Dorothea, who knew every word of it
by heart, was on the alert. At its close the audience held their breath
for a second or two and then--satisfied, as their hostess rose, that
he had really come to an end--tendered their applause, and, breaking
into promiscuous chatter, trooped towards the tea-room. Narcissus
lingered, with bent head, oblivious, silently repeating the last well-
worn sentences while he conned his beloved tessellae.

A voice aroused him from his brown study; he looked up, to find the
hall deserted and M. Raoul standing at his elbow.