The intelligent-looking maid drew back some heavy curtains leading to a
salon beyond the hall, and her mistress smiled brightly at Mellin.

"I shall keep him to jus' his one word," she said, as the young man
passed between the curtains.

It was a nobly proportioned room that he entered, so large that, in
spite of the amount of old furniture it contained, the first impression
it gave was one of spaciousness. Panels of carved and blackened wood
lined the walls higher than his head; above them, Spanish leather
gleamed here and there with flickerings of red and gilt, reflecting
dimly a small but brisk wood fire which crackled in a carved stone
fireplace. His feet slipped on the floor of polished tiles and wandered
from silky rugs to lose themselves in great black bear skins as in
unmown sward. He went from the portrait of a "cinquecento" cardinal to
a splendid tryptich set over a Gothic chest, from a cabinet sheltering
a collection of old glass to an Annunciation by an unknown Primitive.
He told himself that this was a "room in a book," and became dreamily
assured that he was a man in a book. Finally he stumbled upon something
almost grotesquely out of place: a large, new, perfectly-appointed
card-table with a sliding top, a smooth, thick, green cover and patent
compartments.

He halted before this incongruity, regarding it with astonishment.
Then a light laugh rippled behind him, and he turned to find Madame de
Vaurigard seated in a big red Venetian chair by the fire.

She wore a black lace dress, almost severe in fashion, which gracefully
emphasized her slenderness; and she sat with her knees crossed, the