It said briefly:
'There has been an accident. We are not hurt, but the train cannot take us on. Send your carriages for us. I saw in the journals this morning that you were at Amyôt.'
The paper had been sent from the town of Beaugency, whilst it was signed 'Blanche de Laon:' the last person on earth whose presence he would have wished for in his solitude. Irritating, distasteful, and even painful to him as her society was, yet he could do no less than attend to such a request. He must have complied with it had it come from a stranger. He at once sent his brake and two other carriages, with fast horses, to do her bidding, and returned indoors to give such orders as were needful for this unexpected invasion of an unknown number of guests.
It was late, and he himself had dined two hours before; but he ordered a supper to be got ready for the new comers, who might not have dined at Orleans. He concluded that she was passing from Paris to one of her châteaux near Saumur, where in late summer and early autumn she often assembled the very distinguished, but somewhat noisy, society which regarded her as its queen. His musings and his solitude had been roughly dispelled; and, though both had been somewhat joyless, he regretted them as an hour later he heard the roll of the returning wheels and the stamping of impatient horses' hoofs in the great central court of honour, and went perforce to meet and greet his uninvited guests.
The Princess Blanche, having herself driven the four horses of the brake through the moonlit cross-roads which led from Beaugency to Amyôt, was in the highest spirits as she descended from the box seat, and gaily greeted him in her shrill, swift voice and her fashionable langue verte. There had been a severe accident; a goods train had been met by the express; the usual story, as she said contemptuously. The line was strewn with wrecked waggons and overturned engines; there had been no possibility of proceeding to Blois. Had there been people killed? Oh, yes; she believed so. 'On braillait là-bas, n'est-ce pas, Gontran?' she said indifferently to one of her companions, and added, with fervour, 'Tiens! J'ai une faim de loup!'
'But you said that no one was hurt?' said Othmar, regretting that he had not gone in person to the scene of trouble.
'None of us were,' she replied. 'We were in the centre of the train. We felt the shock; that was all. We were playing the American "poker." The collision threw down the cards. I should have come to Amyôt if you had not been here. No one could pass the night at a country station. Besides, Amyôt is always ready for a hundred people.'
'Amyôt is always at the service of all my friends,' replied Othmar with sincerity, but with a certain stiffness. He disliked her familiarity with him at all times, and was conscious that, despite it, she bore no good will to himself or to his wife.
She wasted no more words on him, but led the way into the house, scarcely deigning to present to him those of her companions with whom he was not already acquainted. There was some dozen of them, all, both men and women, notabilities of that haute gomme which was the only world she recognised. They had been travelling with her from Paris, being bidden for a shooting party to her castle in Touraine.
Othmar conducted her to the great hall; then he said to her: