Newman rang at the gate,
and was almost frightened at the tone with which a big rusty bell above
his head replied to him. An old woman came out from the gate-house and
opened the creaking portal just wide enough for him to pass, and he went
in, across the dry, bare court and the little cracked white slabs of
the causeway on the moat. At the door of the chateau he waited for some
moments, and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurieres was not
"kept up," and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence.
"It looks," said Newman to himself--and I give the comparison for what
it is worth--"like a Chinese penitentiary." At last the door was opened
by a servant whom he remembered to have seen in the Rue de l'Universite.
The man's dull face brightened as he perceived our hero, for Newman, for
indefinable reasons, enjoyed the confidence of the liveried gentry. The
footman led the way across a great central vestibule, with a pyramid of
plants in tubs in the middle of glass doors all around, to what appeared
to be the principal drawing-room of the chateau. Newman crossed the
threshold of a room of superb proportions, which made him feel at first
like a tourist with a guide-book and a cicerone awaiting a fee. But when
his guide had left him alone, with the observation that he would call
Madame la Comtesse, Newman perceived that the salon contained little
that was remarkable save a dark ceiling with curiously carved rafters,
some curtains of elaborate, antiquated tapestry, and a dark oaken floor,
polished like a mirror.
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