CHAPTER XXV—Quite Satisfactory
Ruth said nothing to Monsieur Lafrane, although she was startled. He had had no idea, then, of taking her to the Dupay farm. She was somewhat relieved by this discovery, although she was curious as to why she was being carried to the chateau.
It was plain that their visit was expected. The great front door of the old pile of masonry was wide open and a flaring, swinging lamp illuminated the entrance hall, the light shining far across the flagging before the door. As the girl had noted, there seemed no fear here at the chateau of German night raiders, while the village of Clair lay like a black swamp below the hill, not a lamp, even in the hospital, being allowed to shine from windows or doorways there.
“Will you come in, Mademoiselle?” said the leader of the expedition softly.
One of his companions got out, too, and him they left in the entrance hall, standing grim and silent against the wall like an added piece of ancient armor, of which there were several in sight, while the secret agent and Ruth entered an apartment on the right.
It was a library—a long and lofty room, paneled with carved oak and furnished in a wood quite as dark, the chairs and huge table being massive. There were a few fine old pictures; but the bookshelves were almost stripped of volumes. Ruth noted that but a few dozen remained.
The floor, too, was bare; yet by the stain on the boards she saw that once a huge rug must have almost covered the room. Everything remaining gave the apartment a stern and poverty-stricken air.
These things she noted at first glance. The countess was present, and it was the countess who attracted Ruth’s almost immediate attention.
She was quite as handsome and graceful as she had seemed when Ruth saw her walking in the road. But now she was angry, and her head was held high and her cheeks were deeply flushed. Her scant skirts swishing in and out of the candlelight, she walked up and down the room beyond the table, with something of the litheness of the caged tiger.
“And have you come back to repeat these things you have said about Bessie?” she demanded in French of the secret agent.