"It is my secretary," he announced. "I fear, gentlemen, that we are due elsewhere."
"Herr Freudenberg, your luncheon has been delightful," Monsieur Décheles declared, holding out his hand. "You have given us, as usual, something to think of. These informal meetings between citizens of two great countries will do, I am sure, more than anything else in the world, to ripen our budding friendship."
"Your words," Herr Freudenberg replied, grasping the hand which had been offered to him, "are a happy augury. When we meet again, I shall be able to prove the coming of the things of which I have spoken."
They left him on the threshold of the room. The giver of the feast was alone. Very slowly he retraced his steps and stood for a moment with folded arms, looking down on the table at which they had lunched. His natural urbanity, the smile half persuasive, half humorous, which had parted his lips, had gone. His face seemed to have resolved itself into lines of iron. As he stood there, one seemed suddenly to realize the presence of a great man—a greater, even, than Carl Freudenberg, maker of toys!
CHAPTER XVI
"HAVE YOU EVER LOVED?"
Nothing which he had heard or imagined of Madame Christophor had prepared Julien for the subdued yet manifest magnificence of her dwelling. He passed through that small postern gate beneath the watch of a butler who relieved him of his stick and gloves and handed him over to a sort of major-domo. Afterwards he was conducted across a beautiful round hall, lit with quaint fragments of stained-glass window, through a picture gallery which almost took Julien's breath away, and into a small room, very daintily furnished, entirely and characteristically French of the Louis Seize period. A round table was laid for two in front of an open window, which looked out upon a lawn smooth and velvety, with here and there little flower-beds, and in the middle a gray stone fountain. Madame Christophor came in almost at the same moment from the garden. She was wearing a long lace coat over the thinnest of muslin skirts, and a hat with some violets in it which seemed to match exactly the color of her eyes.
"So you have come, my friend of a few hours," she said, smiling at him. "The fear has not seized you yet? You are not afraid that over my simple luncheon table I shall ask you compromising questions?"
"I am neither afraid of your asking questions, madame," he assured her, "nor of my being tempted to reply to them."
"That," she murmured, "is ungallant. Meanwhile, we lunch."