XV
Mrs. Brown walked quickly through the darkening house. She met a footman with a lamp, who stood bewildered at the strange figure, and a housemaid in the upper corridor, who stopped her to ask what she wanted, but was soon intimidated by her look and voice. The stranger wanted no guidance, no indication, to which side to turn, as the maid perceived, who stood watching her, and saw her swift, familiar approach to Mrs. Swinford’s door. ‘Missis will go out of her senses,’ said Mary Jane to herself, and she hurried away, to be out of it, whatever might happen. ‘Nobody can say as I let her in,’ the young woman said.
Madame Julie, the maid, came to the door in answer to Mrs. Brown’s light knock, but not before that lady, waiting for no one, had opened it and stepped into the ante-room in which Julie sat. Mrs. Swinford’s apartment was as complete as English comfort and French refinement could make it. The ante-room, in which Julie sat, was finer than any of the village drawing-rooms, kept comfortable by many carpets and thick curtains, and lighted by a large window turned to the west, by the remaining light in which she regarded with alarm and fury the bold intruder.
‘What you want here?’ she said in her doubtful English, unintimidated by the aspect of the lady who had overawed Mary Jane. ‘Madame reçoit personne,’ she added, in a less assured tone.
‘Moi exceptée toujours, Julie,’ said Mrs. Brown.
Upon which Julie started and clasped her hands. ‘Mon Dieu!’ she said, ‘Madame Artémise!’
‘You need not announce me, I’ll find my way by myself. Has she lights, Julie? Is she alone?’
‘You will startle Madame out of her life, Madame Artémise.’
‘Not a bit. What is pleasant harms no one, and you know she is always happy to see me.’
Julie knew, yet did not look quite sure. ‘I will say but a word, a petit mot. Madame will not look up, but it will prepare her. Ah, she hears us talk!’ for a bell at this moment tinkled into the stillness. Julie put aside the curtain and opened a door, from which came a gleam of light, and a voice saying querulously, ‘You are talking with some one; how often must I say no one must come here?’