The maid retired, leaving them in a small lobby beyond which was a hall lit by cunningly subdued lights, and containing (to Félise’s unsophisticated vision) a museum of costly and beautiful objects. Strange skins of beasts lay on the polished floor, old Spanish chests in glowing crimson girt with steel, queer chairs with straight, tall backs, such as she had seen in the sacristies of old churches in the Dordogne, and richly carved tables were ranged against the walls, and above them hung paintings of old masters, such as she was wont to call “holy pictures,” in gilt frames. From the soft mystery of a corner gleamed a marble copy of the Venus de’ Medici, which, from Félise’s point of view, was not holy at all. Yet the sense of beauty and comfort pervading the place, appealed to her senses. She stood on the threshold looking round wonderingly, when a door opened, and, in a sudden shaft of light, appeared a tall, slim figure which advanced with outstretched hand. Félise shrank behind her father.
“Why, Fortinbras, what good wind has brought you?” The lady spoke in a rich and somewhat lazy contralto. “Excuse that celestial idiot of a Céleste for leaving you standing here in the cold. Come right in.”
She led the way into the hall, and then became aware of Félise and flashed a glance of enquiry.
“This is my little daughter, Lucilla.”
“Why? Not Félise?” she gave her both hands in a graceful gesture. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve heard all about you from Corinna Hastings. I put her up for the night on her way back to London, you know. Now why”—still holding Félise’s hands—“have you kept her from us all this time, Fortinbras? I don’t like you at all.”
“Paris,” said Fortinbras, “isn’t good for little girls who live in the heart of France.”
“But surely the heart of France is Paris!” cried Lucilla Merriton.
“Paris, my dear Lucilla,” replied Fortinbras gravely, “may be the liver, the spleen, the pancreas—whatever giblets you please of France; but it is not its heart.”
Lucilla laughed; and when she laughed she had a way of throwing up her head which accentuated the graceful setting of her neck. Her thick brown hair brushed back, ever so little suggestive of the Pompadour, from her straight forehead, aided the unconscious charm of the habit.
“We won’t argue the point. You’ve brought Félise here because you want me to look after her. How did I guess? My dear man, I’ve lived twenty-seven years in this ingenuous universe. How babes unborn don’t spot its transparent simplicity I never could imagine. You haven’t dined.”