XXIX
“Monsieur,” said the Marquis Gaspard to me, “it was a great pleasure to be able to allow you this hour you so much desired. I hope it came up fully to your expectations.”
He was standing in the center of the large hall to which I had just returned—taller he seemed to me than formerly, with a carriage more erect and eyes agleam with a brighter, more imperious flame.
The candles along the wall had been put out; only the two lamps to the right and left of the fireplace were still lighted, and the Count François was busy lowering the wicks of these.
“Monsieur,” the marquis continued, “will you not kindly take your place for what we still have to do?”
He pointed to the deep chair in which he himself had been resting before I left the room.
I was anxious to betray no uneasiness whatever. I advanced without hesitation to the seat appointed and calmly sat down.
“Antoine!” the count called.
I was in that one of the two chairs which seemed nearest to the great lens. Facing me, and some ten or twelve paces away was the other seat, its arms opening toward me. It was empty. The stuffed cushions on the back of my chair, of the seat, arms and head-rest, seemed to accommodate my body perfectly; so that I was not conscious of any weight or fatigue at all. I stiffened nevertheless when I saw what the Vicomte Antoine was about to do. At his father’s call, the younger man stepped forward in my direction carrying in his hand a sort of dark lantern, much larger than the one which had lighted our path over the mountains.
“Look out! Look out, Monsieur!” he called, noticing that I had fixed my eyes in some alarm upon him. “Turn your head the other way, or you may be blinded.”