“You’ll manage all right,” she assured him encouragingly.
She opened the front door and led him across the low, almost square hall, oak-panelled to the ceiling and with several strange and, to Mr. Johnson’s taste, not yet educated to futurism, extremely bizarre pictures upon the wall. Then she opened another door softly and beckoned him to follow her.
“This is Mr. Johnson who has come to live at the Great House, Madame,” she announced.
She left him then, and Mr. Johnson crossed the room towards the couch. His curiosity concerning Madame rather increased as he bent down to take her unexpectedly beautiful hand. She was lying flat on her back in a sort of invalid chair, which was drawn up, as usual, to an open window, and from her waist downwards she was covered by a beautiful Chinese wrap of light texture. He was astonished by the lack of wrinkles in her face, the clearness of its complexion, the absence of any sign of illness. A lace scarf around her neck was fastened by an exquisite pin with ancient paste gems, and the fingers of the hand which still remained in his seemed ablaze with jewels, all of them with old-fashioned settings, which contained, however, some really fine gems.
“So you are my new neighbour,” she remarked abruptly.
Her voice gave Mr. Johnson further cause for surprise. It was very low and very musical, but it possessed other qualities which he found it difficult to define.
“I have come to live at the Great House for a time,” he replied.
“Why have you come here?” she demanded.
He accepted the chair to which she had pointed imperiously.
“It is a most extraordinary thing,” he said, “but every person I have met since I came here has asked me the same question. Why should I not choose to come and live a quiet life in Market Ballaston? The place pleased me. I wished to live in the country—in Norfolk for choice—the house and the surroundings were just what I wanted.”