Hastily the Vicomte Antoine arose; but he was not so quick as I. I was at the door in a second and closed it with my own hands, making sure, meanwhile, that a simple latch was all that fastened it.
“Thanks, a thousand thanks!” exclaimed the marquis. “But, Monsieur le capitaine, why go to such extremes of courtesy? My grandson could have closed it just as well!”
I was already in my seat again, and the vicomte in his. There was a period of silence, in which my eyes had time to flit about the room. A couple of logs were glowing in the ancient fire-place. The candles about the walls were gleaming brightly. The beams in the ceiling were darkened from the smoke of the open fire during many years. The easy chairs I found quite beautiful in their upholstery of old brocade.
And there were my three hosts!
An uncontrollable astonishment now came over me, something far in excess of any of the surprises I had experienced heretofore. Those two more than centenarians in their long snow-white beards were respectively son and grandson of the third, who seemed to be, by far, the youngest of the three! His face, smooth shaven, had not the trace of a wrinkle. There was no suggestion of sunkenness about his eyes; just as his falsetto voice came from high in his throat without a tremor and without hesitation. And yet—such the situation seemed to be! He was indeed the ancestor par excellence, the veritable patriarch, and of an age that beggared the full many years of the fathers of Abraham!
But of what could I be really sure?
The silence continued unbroken. Now we were in our chairs, the three of them facing me. They looked for all the world like a tribunal, with the marquis figuring as chief justice, and his son and grandson as associates. And I, what was I in that picture? Suspect? Defendant? A culprit awaiting sentence?
The silence lasted an unutterably long time. The three pairs of eyes fixed upon me eventually got on my nerves. To conceal my annoyance and self consciousness, I turned my head and again examined the vast hall. It was a sort of living-room—low-studded—and not a parlor, nor a lounge. The woodwork on the chairs was gilded, and the upholstery, as I had before observed, was of old brocade. The plastering was painted simply, without hangings, mirrors, or pictures, of any kind. Meagre, also, the furnishings: in addition to our four arm-chairs, two divans in the same style (an impeccable Louis XV), and two seats of fantastic form—dormeuses, one might have called them—with complicated rests for arms and feet and head, and so deep that they might have smothered rather than accommodated the human form. I further noticed an old-fashioned clock and a chest, on opposite sides of the room, and then a kind of horse, or easel, such as painters use to incline their canvases according to the fall of light.
I was studying this latter object, when the Marquis Gaspard coughed, and then sneezed noisily. My eyes came back to him. He was holding a snuff box in his hand and had just taken a pinch from it. He returned the object to his pocket, and then began, evidently by way of introduction: