“But—­pardon—­you stay here?”

“It is beautiful here, monsieur.”

“But such solitude, such isolation—­for you, madame!”

“I know.  Still, I am fond of the life here; it was here I found myself again, after my grief.  And I am fond of my adopted mother and Louise, too, and they of me.  Indeed, I am all they have left.  Louise, of course, will marry before long, Georges”—­she used d’Aubrac’s given name—­“will take her away, then Madame de Sevenie will have nobody but me.  And at her age, it would be too sad...”

Across the drawing-room that lady looked up from her cards and sharply interrogated a manservant who had silently presented himself to her attention.

“What is it you want, Jean?”

The servant mumbled his justification:  An automobile had broken down on the highroad near the chateau, the chauffeur was unable to move the car or make any repairs in the storm, a gentleman had come to the door to ask....

He moved aside, indicating the doorway to the entrance hall, beyond which Mr. Phinuit was to be seen, standing with cap in hand, tiny rivulets running from the folds of his motor-coat and forming pools on the polished flooring.  As in concerted movement Madame de Sevenie, Eve de Montalais, the cure and Duchemin approached, his cool, intelligent, good-humoured glance surveyed them swiftly, each in turn, and with unerring instinct settled on the first as the one to whom he must address himself.

But the bow with which he also acknowledged the presence of Eve was hardly less profound; Duchemin himself, at his best, could hardly have bettered it.  His manner, in fact, left nothing to be desired; and the French in which immediately he begged a thousand pardons for the intrusion was so admirable that it seemed hard to believe he was the same man who had, only a few hours earlier, composedly traded the slang of the States with a chauffeur in front of the Cafe de l’Univers.

Mr. Phinuit was desolated to think he might be imposing on madame’s good nature, but the accident was positive, the night truly inclement, madame la comtesse was already suffering from the cold, and if one might beg shelter for her and the gentlemen of the party while one telephoned or sent to Nant for another automobile....

But monsieur might feel very sure Madame de Sevenie would never forgive herself if the hospitality of the Chateau de Montalais failed at such a time.  She would send servants to the car at once with lights, wraps, umbrellas....

There was no necessity for that.  The remainder of the party had, it seemed, presumed upon her courtesy in anticipation, and was not far from the heels of its ambassador.  Even while madame was speaking, Jean was opening the great front doors to those who proved—­formal introductions being duly effect by Mr. Phinuit—­to be Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes, monsieur le comte, her husband (this was the well-fed body in tweeds) and Mr. Whitaker Monk, of New York.