CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH MR. ERWIN SEEK PARIS

As she glanced around the sitting-room of her apartment in Paris one September morning she found it difficult, in some respects, to realize that she had lived in it for more than five years.  After Chiltern’s death she had sought a refuge, and she had found it here:  a refuge in which she meant—­if her intention may be so definitely stated—­to pass the remainder of her days.

As a refuge it had become dear to her.  When first she had entered it she had looked about her numbly, thankful for walls and roof, thankful for its remoteness from the haunts of the prying:  as a shipwrecked castaway regards, at the first light, the cave into which he has stumbled into the darkness-gratefully.  And gradually, castaway that she felt herself to be, she had adorned it lovingly, as one above whose horizon the sails of hope were not to rise; filled it with friends not chosen in a day, whose faithful ministrations were not to cease.  Her books, but only those worthy to be bound and read again; the pictures she had bought when she had grown to know what pictures were; the music she had come to love for its eternal qualities—­these were her companions.

The apartment was in the old quarter across the Seine, and she had found it by chance.  The ancient family of which this hotel had once been the home would scarce have recognized, if they had returned the part of it Honora occupied.  The room in which she mostly lived was above the corner of the quiet street, and might have been more aptly called a sitting-room than a salon.  Its panels were the most delicate of blue-gray, fantastically designed and outlined by ribbings of blue.  Some of them contained her pictures.  The chairs, the sofas, the little tabourets, were upholstered in yellow, their wood matching the panels.  Above the carved mantel of yellowing marble was a quaintly shaped mirror extending to the high ceiling, and flanked on either side by sconces.  The carpet was a golden brown, the hangings in the tall windows yellow.  And in the morning the sun came in, not boisterously, but as a well-bred and cheerful guest.  An amiable proprietor had permitted her also to add a wrought-iron balcony as an adjunct to this room, and sometimes she sat there on the warmer days reading under the seclusion of an awning, or gazing at the mysterious facades of the houses opposite, or at infrequent cabs or pedestrians below.

An archway led out of the sitting-room into a smaller room, once the boudoir of a marquise, now Honora’s library.  This was in blue and gold, and she had so far modified the design of the decorator as to replace the mirrors of the cases with glass; she liked to see her books.  Beyond the library was a dining room in grey, with dark red hangings; it overlooked the forgotten garden of the hotel.