"You have kept us all waiting," he cried, with evident annoyance in his tone.
I glanced round in astonishment, for there was no one save our two selves in the great apartment.
"I will present you to my guests, Madame——?" and he paused interrogatively.
"Lerestelle," I exclaimed, still bewildered.
And then he took me by the hand, and we made the tour of the room.
Truly, as he said, his guests were the greatest ones of the earth; truly my host was hopelessly mad, for no reception-room that the world has ever known has been filled with such a gathering. And truly, too, he and I were alone.
Living and dead, these imaginary creatures of his disordered brain were massed together in hopeless confusion. He flung a witticism at Madame de Staël, a cynicism at Voltaire, a quotation from "Fédora" at Sardou, and a line from a sonnet at Alfred de Musset. And I bowed to the empty chairs, and humored this weird pleasantry.
We reached the climax when my host presented me to Napoleon Bonaparte, and I could scarcely restrain the hysteric laughter which was dangerously near escaping. But relief came as he introduced me to the last imaginary guest of all, the present Minister of Marine, my friend Monsieur Vicenne.
There seemed a certain irony in the fact that the man upon whose behalf I had braved this dwelling should have been, in the crazed mind of my host, included with his illustrious guests. He left me beside my friend, and I sank into a chair, with a vague uneasiness that I could not dispel, a feeling of restless horror that deepened, as monsieur, like an ideal host, sauntered from one chair to another, chatting lightly to these impalpable creatures of his imagination; laughing at some jest with this one, and anon leaning towards another, as though interchanging a whispered confidence.
I felt I was growing hysterical: a moment longer and I should have shrieked. The strain was becoming too great, the horror at being alone with such a man too much; but a gong boomed without, and he, with some imaginary beauty leaning upon his arm, passed from the room, while I sauntered behind, and far behind, too, for I was fearful of the order of precedence.