dining-room and communicated with the kitchen. This lower door, which
was wholly without the external charm usually seen even in the humblest
dwellings in Touraine, was covered by a mansard story, reached by a
stairway built on the outside of the house against the gable end and
protected by a shed-roof. A little garden, full of marigolds,
syringas, and elder-bushes, separated the house from the fields; and
all around the courtyard were detached buildings which were used in
the vintage season for the various processes of making wine.



CHAPTER IV

Margaritis was seated in an arm-chair covered with yellow Utrecht
velvet, near the window of the salon, and he did not stir as the two
ladies entered with Gaudissart. His thoughts were running on the casks
of wine. He was a spare man, and his bald head, garnished with a few
spare locks at the back of it, was pear-shaped in conformation. His
sunken eyes, overtopped by heavy black brows and surrounded by
discolored circles, his nose, thin and sharp like the blade of a
knife, the strongly marked jawbone, the hollow cheeks, and the oblong
tendency of all these lines, together with his unnaturally long and
flat chin, contributed to give a peculiar expression to his
countenance,--something between that of a retired professor of
rhetoric and a rag-picker.

"Monsieur Margaritis," cried Madame Vernier, addressing him, "come,
stir about! Here is a gentleman whom my husband sends to you, and you
must listen to him with great attention. Put away your mathematics and
talk to him."