tie was bribed
to ask for, is only for two or three days. How you _must_ have been
feeling when you were told to drive here! But you showed nothing."

"I had a qualm or two when I was sure of the place; but then it was
over. It's far worse for you than for me. And I told you I've been
learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. I was merely a Stoic
before."

"It's nothing for me, comparatively," I said, and by this time, I was
quite sincere; but I didn't know then what the next twenty-four hours
were to bring.

We were not left alone for long, but in ten minutes we had had our talk
out, while we played at eating the meal we had looked forward to with
eagerness before our appetites were crowded into the background. A fat
_sous chef_ flitted about; maids and valets glanced in; nevertheless, we
found time for a heart-warming hand pressure before we parted for the
night. Altogether, I had not had more than fifteen minutes in the
dining-room; yet when I left I felt a hundred times braver and more
cheerful.

Already I had been to my mistress's quarters. The maid who took charge
of me on my arrival showed me that room before she showed me mine, and
explained the way from one to the other. My "bump of locality" was
tested, however, in getting back to her ladyship's part of the house,
for the castle has its intricacies.

The word "chateau," in France, covers a multitude of comfortable,
unpretentious family mansions, as I had not to find out now, for the
first time; and the dwelling of the Roquemartines, though a fine old
house of the seventeenth century, is no more imposing, under its high,
slate roof, than many another. It is Lady Turnour's first experience,
though, as a visitor in the "mansions of the great," and when I had been
briskly unpacking for half an hour or so, she came in, somewhat subdued
by her new emotions. I think that she was rather glad to see a familiar
face, to have someone to talk to of whom she did not feel in awe, with
whom she need not be afraid of making some mistake; and she seemed
quite human to me, for the first time.

Never had I seen her in such an expansive mood, not even when she gave
me the blouse. Instead of the cross words I had braced myself to expect,
she was almost friendly. She had felt a fool, she said, not being able
to dress for dinner, but then no one else could touch her, for jewels;
and didn't every one just stare, at the table, though, of course, she
hadn't put on her tiara,