A third pair of folding-doors facing the hall-entrance opened into the drawing-room; a fourth to the right of these gave entrance to the billiard-room, from which access might be gained by a low glass door into the winter-garden, a high-domed glass house full of palms and tree-ferns, boasting a little fountain, whose leaden dolphin, balanced almost perpendicularly on his tail in the center of a moss-stained basin, could spout high enough to wet the green roof when any charitable hand might set him going. A door at the farther end of this winter-garden gave access to a small room lined with books, classical works by standard French authors for the most part, smelling moldy, and apt, when a curious hand strove to remove them from their shelves, to stick to their neighbors on either side. And looking at the conservatory from outside, one perceived, running along the entire length of the rounded glass roof, a wrought-iron gangway, or double-sided balcony. From which, according to the testimony of Madame, the late M. Tessier, from whose dressing-room this aerial promenade could be gained by a glass door had been, accustomed to enjoy the prospect and breathe the air.
XXII
Madame, a discreet and sensible-looking person, with very little more mustache than is becoming to a Frenchwoman of sixty, embraced Juliette warmly on both cheeks, and graciously received the Colonel's salute upon her mittened left hand. The mittens were invariably black in tribute to the memory of the late M. Tessier. Madame's half-mourning, gray poplin gown, trimmed with black gimp upon the gores, round the bottom of the expansive skirt and upon the waist and shoulder-lappets, might have been the same she had always worn, in Juliette's memory. Her cap had lavender ribbons, her front was bay, whereas it had been chestnut, and the net of black chenille-velvet, in which she confined her back hair, plentiful in quantity and iron gray like her mustache and eyebrows, had silver beads upon it here and there.
Father and daughter were made welcome, were entertained with wine of Madeira, raspberry-vinegar—for which sweet, subacid beverage, diluted with water, young ladies were expected to express a preference—macaroons, ratafias, and little pink ice-cakes. The Colonel, having accepted a glass of the good vintage and consumed a biscuit, expressed a desire to walk round the garden; Madame, who had suggested the excursion, and Juliette, who had gone goose-flesh all over—were left to a tête-à-tête.
During the collation described above, Mademoiselle's blue eyes had discreetly raked the walls of the dining-room in search of portraits. Nothing rewarded her search but a highly varnished oil presentment of a simpering young woman in the vast flowery bonnet, the bunches of side-curls, and the high-waisted gown of 1830, in whom one must perforce discover Madame in her twentieth year. A case of three miniatures hung beside the copper wood-tongs on the left of the fireplace. When Madame affectionately leaned to her young guest, patted her hand, and bade her take her seat upon a green velvet fauteuil between Madame's own high-backed arm-chair and the carved-oak-framed, glass-covered embroidery picture of Dido on her funeral pyre that served as fire-screen, Juliette, in the act of transit, cast a rapid glance at this case. In vain. Only M. Tessier, in a high satin stock, gray curls and strips of side-whisker, Madame in a lace cap, fiddle-bodied brown silk gown, berthe, and cameo brooch, and a chubby infant of indeterminate sex, with sausage curls and tartan shoulder-knots, rewarded her anxious scrutiny. She could not restrain a sigh.
To be taken by the chin is not unpleasant to a young lady, under the right conditions and given certain circumstances. But when the ringed and bony fingers enclosed in Madame's black mitten, turned the small, pale oval to the light, a choking lump rose in Juliette's throat, and the black lashes veiled the eyes her aged friend would have peered in. She felt given over to harpies, abandoned and alone. Almost she could have rushed to one of the long French windows, wrenched it open, and fled to the shelter of her father. I wonder whether the Colonel was as ill at ease as his daughter, as he paced the winding paths under the leafless trees, between the beds of snow-powdered ground ivy, already sprinkled with patches of aconite in partially thawed places, shining yellow as little suns against dark leaves and wet brown earth....
She could see him from the nearer of the three long windows opening on the steps that led to the garden. He walked among the trees bare-headed, holding his high silk hat and gold-topped Indian cane behind him, his handsome double chin bent upon his breast, his fine face full of care. Even his boldly-curled mustaches seemed to droop under the weight of sorrows that were no longer hidden from his child.
At the bottom of his heart he distrusted her, she was almost certain. And from the bottom of her own heart she forgave the cruel wrong. He had come to believe, since the great betrayal, that every woman save the Mother of all mothers, and his own, had it in her to play the traitress, given the opportunity. Thus the opportunity was not to be given to Juliette.
Madame was speaking. She no longer held the little chin, though the chill of her hard finger-tips still seemed to cling to it. She smiled benevolently, making curves of parenthesis in her well-powdered cheeks, and sometimes punctuating her sentences by a rather disconcerting click of teeth that were too startlingly white and never seemed to fit properly.