“I will accept your invitation, Sir!”
And I advanced upon him.
But he drew back, as though to let me pass in front of him. This I refused to do. He may have guessed what was in my mind, for he did not insist. He led the way in front of me, with the words:
“As you will, Monsieur, ... just to show you the way!...”
On reaching the reception hall, I stopped in front of the door where I had caught the breath of Madeleine’s perfume. But it was not toward it—not as yet toward it—that I was guided.
In fact, the old man went straight across the anteroom, and, seeing me motionless in front of the same door, politely called:
“This way, if Monsieur will be so kind!”
Another door, concealed as all the others in the paneling, now opened, not, however, into a corridor, but directly into a large, in fact, a very very large room, which was thus cut off from the reception hall by the thickness of one partition.
My eyes winced before the glare of some fifty or sixty candles distributed about the room in holders along the walls and of two massive lamps, one to either side of the fire-place. The latter was a majestic hearth in ancient style with a huge embossed and sculptured hood spacious enough, I thought, to accommodate a goodly number of whole oxen.
Seated in an armchair and facing me as I came in was the old father—so at least I decided; but next to him, now, was a third aged man whom I had not seen as yet, and whom I took for a much younger person than the other two, though he also was far from young. They both bowed in greeting as I entered.