Dick, a gangling freckled youth, slowed down the machine as if in preparation for a stop. “I’ve got the key,” he volunteered, “if you want to go in.”
Until that moment Lindsay had entertained no idea of going in. But Dick’s words fired his imagination. “Thanks, I think I will.”
Dick handed over the long, delicately wrought key. He made no move to follow Lindsay out of the car. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll run down the road to see a cousin of mine. How soon before you’ll want to start back?”
“Oh, give me half an hour or so,” Lindsay decided carelessly.
The runabout chugged into the green arch which imprisoned the distance.
Alone, Lindsay strolled between lilac bushes and over the sunken flags which led to the front door. Then, changing his mind, he made an appraising tour about the outside of the place.
Blue Meadows was a big old house: big, so it seemed to his amateur judgment, by an incredible number of rooms; and old—and here his judgment, though swift, was more accurate—to the time of two hundred years. Outside, it had all the earmarks of Colonial architecture—plain lines, stark walls, the windows, with twenty-four lights, geometrically placed; but its lovely lines, its beautiful proportions, and the soft plushy nap which time had laid upon its front clapboardings mitigated all its severities. The shingles of the roof and sides were weather-beaten and gray, the blinds a deep old blue. At one side jutted an incongruous modern addition; into the second story of which was set a galleried piazza. At the other side stretched an endless series of additions, tapering in size to a tiny shed.
“This is Lutetia’s house!” Lindsay stopped to muse. “Is it true that I spent two years with the French Army? Is it true that I served two more with the American Army? Oh, to think you didn’t live to see all that, Lutetia!”
A lattice arched over the doorway and on it a big climbing rose was just coming into bud. The beautiful door showed the pointed architrave, the leaded side panels, the fanlight, the engaged columns, of Colonial times. It resisted the first attack of the key, but yielded finally to Lindsay’s persuasion. He stepped into the hall.
It was a rectangular hall, running straight to the back of the house. Pairs of doors, opposite each other, gaped on both sides. At the left arose a slender straight stairway, mahogany-railed. Lindsay strolled from one room to the other, opening windows and blinds. They were big square rooms, finished in the conventional Colonial manner, with fireplaces and fireplace cupboards. The wallpaper, faded and stained, was of course quite bare of pictures and ornaments. He stopped to examine the carving on the white, painted panels above the fireplace—garlands of flowers caught with torches and masks.