ndonment of the _morte saison_, with reduced service,
and shutters closed to the silence of the high-walled court, did it
strike the American as the incorruptible custodian of old prejudices
and strange social survivals. The thought of what he must represent
to the almost human consciousness which such old houses seem to
possess, made him feel like a barbarian desecrating the silence of a
temple of the earlier faith. Not that there was anything venerable
in the attestations of the Hotel de Malrive, except in so far as, to
a sensitive imagination, every concrete embodiment of a past order
of things testifies to real convictions once suffered for. Durham,
at any rate, always alive in practical issues to the view of the
other side, had enough sympathy left over to spend it sometimes,
whimsically, on such perceptions of difference. Today, especially,
the assurance of success--the sense of entering like a victorious
beleaguerer receiving the keys of the stronghold--disposed him to a
sentimental perception of what the other side might have to say for
itself, in the language of old portraits, old relics, old usages
dumbly outraged by his mere presence.

On the appearance of Madame de Treymes, however, such considerations
gave way to the immediate act of wondering how she meant to carry
off her share of the adventure. Durham had not forgotten the note on
which their last conversation had closed: the lapse of time serving
only to give more precision and perspective to the impression he had
then received.

Madame de Treymes' first words implied a recognition of what was in
his thoughts.

"It is extraordinary, my receiving you here; but _que voulez vous?_
There was no other place, and I would do more than this for our dear
Fanny."

Durham bowed. "It seems to me that you are also doing a great deal
for me."

"Perhaps you will see later that I have my reasons," she returned
smiling. "But before speaking for myself I must speak for Fanny."

She signed to him to take a chair near the sofa-corner in which she
had installed herself, and he listened in silence while she
delivered Madame de Malrive's message, and her own report of the
progress of affairs.

"You have put me still more deeply in your debt," he said, as she
concluded; "I wish you would make the expression of this feeling a
large part of the message I send back to Madame de Malrive."

She brushed this aside with one of her light gestures of
deprecation. "Oh, I tol