We found the attendant waiting, and by a devious route along many passages and through many doors we reached our destination at last. Our guide knocked at a door on which was hanging a little board with the name of "Monsieur Feurgéres" painted across it. Almost immediately we were bidden to enter. Monsieur Feurgéres was sitting with his back to us before a long dressing-table. He turned at once to the servant who stood by his side.
"Come back five minutes before my call," he ordered. "That will be in about twenty minutes from now."
The man bowed and silently withdrew. Not until he had left the room did Feurgéres move from his place. Then he arose to his feet and held out his hands to Isobel.
"I knew your mother, Isobel!" he said simply.
CHAPTER X
Isobel never hesitated. I think that instinctively she accepted him without demur. Her eyes flashed back to him all those nameless things which his own greeting had left unspoken. She took his hands, and looked him frankly in the face.
"All my life," she said softly, "I have wanted to meet someone who could say that to me."
He was dressed in a suit of mediæval court clothes, black from head to foot, and fashioned according to the period of the play in which he was acting. But if he had worn the garments of a pierrot or a clown, one would never have noticed it. The man's individuality, magnetic and irresistible, triumphed easily. Mr. Grooten had passed away. It was the great Feurgéres, whose sad shining eyes lingered so wistfully upon Isobel's face.
"I can say more than that," he went on. "And now that I see you, Isobel, I wonder that I have not said it long ago. You are like her, child—very like her!"