And she questioned the willingly communicative cocher as to how long it might take to walk to the Château?
“About an hour,” he replied. “A pleasant walk, too, Madame! One sees the lake and mountains nearly all the way.”
This information decided her as to her plans. She knew that the eccentric wording of the Dimitrius advertisement required any applicant to present herself between six and eight in the morning, which was an ideal time for a walk in the bracing, brilliant Alpine air. So she determined to go on foot the very next day; and before she parted with the friendly driver, she had ascertained the exact position of the Château, and the easiest and quickest way to get there.
And now,—having risen with the first peep of dawn, and attired herself in that becoming navy serge “model,” which her astute friend Sophy had borne triumphantly out of the French tailor’s emporium, she was on her way to the scene of her proposed adventure. She walked at a light, rapid pace—the morning was bright and cool, almost cold when the wind blew downward from the mountains, and she was delightfully conscious of that wonderful exhilaration and ease given to the whole physical frame by a clear atmosphere, purified by the constant presence of ice and snow. As she moved along in happiest mood, she thought of many things;—she was beginning to be amazed, as well as charmed, by the various changes which had, within a week, shaken her lately monotonous life into brilliant little patterns like those in a kaleidoscope. The web and woof of Circumstance was no longer all dull grey, like the colour her father had judged most suitable for her now that she was no longer young,—threads of rose and sky blue had found their hopeful way into the loom. Her days of housekeeping, checking tradesmen’s bills and flower-arranging seemed a very long way off; it was hardly credible to her mind that but a short time ago she had been responsible for the ordering of her parents’ lunches and dinners and the general management of the summer “change” at Rose Lea on the coast of Devon,—that fatal coast where she had been so cruelly drowned! Before leaving London, she had seen a few casual paragraphs in the newspapers concerning this disaster, headed “Bathing Fatality”—“Sad End of a Lady”—or “Drowned while Bathing,” but, naturally, being a nobody, she had left no gap in society,—she was only one of many needless women. And it was an altogether new and aspiring Diana May that found herself alive on this glorious morning in Switzerland; not the resigned, patient, orderly “old maid” with a taste for Jacobean embroidery and a wholesome dislike of the “snap-snap-snarl” humours of her father.
“I never seem to have been my own real self till now!” she said inwardly. “And now I hardly realise that I have a father and mother at all! What a tyrannical bogy I have made of my ‘duty’ to them! And ‘love’ is another bogy!”
She glanced at her watch,—one of Sophy Lansing’s numerous dainty trifles—“Keep it in exchange,” Sophy had said, “for yours which your bereaved parents are going to send me as an ‘In Memoriam’!” It was ten minutes to seven. Looking about her to take note of her bearings, she saw on the left-hand side a deep bend in the road, which curved towards a fine gateway of wrought iron, surmounted by a curious device representing two crossed spears springing from the centre of a star,—and she knew she had arrived at her destination. Her heart beat a little more quickly as she approached the gateway—there was no keeper’s lodge, so she pulled at a handle which dimly suggested the possibility of a bell. There was no audible response,—but to all appearance the gates noiselessly unbarred themselves, and slowly opened. She entered at once without hesitation, and they as slowly closed behind her. She was in the grounds of the Château Fragonard. Immense borders of heliotrope in full bloom fringed either side of the carriage drive where she stood, and the mere lifting of her eyes showed masses of flowering shrubs and finely-grown trees bending their shadowy branches over velvety stretches of rich green grass, or opening in leafy archways here and there to disclose enchanting glimpses of blue water or dazzling peaks of far-off snow. She would have been glad to linger among such lovely surroundings, for she had a keen comprehension of and insight into the beauty of Nature and all the joys it offers to a devout and discerning spirit, but she bethought herself that if Dr. Dimitrius was anything of an exact or punctilious person, he would expect an applicant to be rather before than after time. A silver-toned chime, striking slowly and musically on the sunlit silence, rang seven o’clock as she reached the Château, which looked like a miniature palace of Greek design, and was surrounded with a broad white marble loggia, supported by finely fluted Ionic columns, between two of which on each side a fountain played. But Diana had scarcely time to look at anything while quickly ascending the short flight of steps leading to the door of entrance; she saw a bell and was in haste to ring it. Her summons was answered at once by a negro servant dressed in unassuming dark livery.
“Dr. Dimitrius?” she queried.
The negro touched his lips with an expressive movement signifying that he was dumb,—but he was not deaf, for he nodded an affirmative to her inquiry, and by a civil gesture invited her to enter. In another few seconds she found herself in a spacious library—a finely proportioned room, apparently running the full length of the house, with large French windows at both ends, commanding magnificent views.
Left alone for several minutes, she moved about half timidly, half boldly, looking here and there—at the great globes, celestial and terrestrial, which occupied one corner,—at the long telescope on its stand ready for use and pointed out to the heavens—and especially at a curious instrument of fine steel set on a block of crystal, which swung slowly up and down incessantly, striking off an infinitesimal spark of fire as it moved.
“Some clock-work thing,” she said half aloud. “But where is its mechanism?”