A few moments later a delicious meal was spread before her, to which she did full justice, feeling by this time on the verge of starvation.
When she had finished, Lucile expressed her curiosity and admiration for the old place and Jeanette suggested that they look about—provided her guest was not too tired. Lucile replied that she felt as if the word “tired” had never been in her vocabulary—which was literally true.
At the end of a fascinating tour of inspection, during which Lucile had started many times to put pointed questions to Jeanette and stopped just in time, Jeanette paused at the foot of a winding staircase.
She ascended a step or two; then, looking down upon her guest, said, wistfully, “I am so glad you came! I have so little company and seeing you has been like—ah, like a cup of water to one dying of thirst,” and underneath the little laugh that followed Lucile fancied she detected an infinite sadness.
Her warm young heart went out to the other girl, as she said, heartily, “Then I’m very glad I mistook the path this morning, since it has given me a chance to know you. But why don’t you ever see anybody?” she added. “Aren’t there any girls around here?”
“Oh, yes, there are some—but it is so long a story, I would not bore you with it. Come, we will go upstairs!” And, though Lucile was dying to hear more, she wisely forbore to press the point.
While they were looking about them happily there was the sound of wheels on the drive and Jeanette, rushing to the window, exclaimed, “There’s Pierre at this minute. 155 Mam’selle will pardon if I speak with him a moment?” and for the second time that day Lucile was left alone in this house of romance and mystery.
“She won’t mind if I look around by myself,” and so she began to explore in earnest. She was tremendously excited.
“They say these old chateaux are full of secret passages, but I’d never have the luck to find any. Oh, I’m afraid the girls won’t believe me when I tell them about it—and I won’t blame them much if they don’t; I’d have to see it to believe it myself.”
The attic was large and many cornered, with a sharply slanted roof, shading tiny, many-paned dormer windows. There were the regulation cobwebs, that hung in attractive festoons from the rafters. These, with the quantities of discarded but beautiful old furniture, scattered about in picturesque confusion, formed an effective background for Lucile’s detective work.