Never was so appallingly hospitable a man, and I trusted that even the Boy suffered from his kindness.  Madame la Baronne, who was away for the afternoon, would chide him if guests were allowed to leave her house without refreshment.  Eat we must, and drink we must, in the beautiful hall evidently used as a sitting-room by the absent chatelaine.  Her wine and her cakes were served on an ancient silver tray, almost as old as the family traditions, and it was not until we had done to both such justice as the major-domo thought fair that he would consent to let us go further.

The house was really of superlative interest, though spoiled here and there by eccentric modern decoration.  Much of the window glass had remained intact through centuries; the walls were twelve feet thick; the oak-beamed ceilings magnificent, and the secret stairways and rooms in the thickness of the walls, bewildering; but when our conductor began leading us into the bedrooms in daily use by the ladies of the castle, my gorge rose.  “This is awful,” I said.  “I can’t go on.  What if Madame la Baronne returns and finds a strange man and a boy in her bedroom?  Good heavens, now he’s opening the door of the bath!”

“We must go on,” whispered the Boy, convulsed with silent laughter.  “If we don’t, the major-domo won’t understand our scruples.  He’ll think we’re tired, and don’t appreciate the castle.  It would never do to hurt his feelings, when he has been so kind.”

“To the bitter end, then,” I answered desperately; and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the bitter end came.  It consisted of a collision with the Baronne’s dressing-jacket, which hung from a hook, and tapped me on the shoulder with one empty frilled sleeve, in soft admonition.  I could bear no more.  One must draw the line somewhere, and I drew the line at intruding upon ladies’ dressing-jackets in their most sacred fastnesses.

If I had been a woman, my pent-up emotion at this moment would have culminated in hysterics, but being a man, I merely bolted, stumbling, as I fled, over my absent hostess’ bedroom slippers.  I scuttled down a winding flight of tower stairs, broke incontinently into a lighted region which turned out to be a kitchen, startled the cook, apologised incontinently, and somehow found myself, like Alice in Wonderland, back in the great entrance hail.  There, starting at every sound, lest a returning family party should catch me “lurking,” I awaited the Boy.

We left, finally, showering francs and compliments; but I crawled out a decrepid wreck, and refused pitilessly to do more than view the exterior of other chateaux.  It was evening when we saw our white hotel once more, and a haze of starlight dusted the sky and all the blue distance with silver powder.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV

The Path of the Moon

“And then they came to the turnstile of night.” 
—­RUDYARD KIPLING.