‘There are here a hundred and fifty thousand bottles of claret,’ said the manager, with prosaic calm. ‘Some of them are a century old. This is the private cellar of Baron de Rothschild.’ ‘He will not drink it all,’ said Monsieur Z.; and we laughed a feeble giggle, whose fatuity told that we had become exhausted receivers. More and yet more aisles followed, catacombs of silence and black heavy air, but full of the strange life of the wine that lay, biding its time [Illustration: ON EITHER SIDE THE TIERS OF BOTTLES LOOKED AT US OUT OF THEIR PARTITIONS WITH COLD UNCOUNTABLE EYES.] according to its tribe and family, in a ‘monotony of enchanted pride,’ as Ruskin has said about pine trees. We saw very little more of wine-making, when we got out again into the blustry heat, and crawled back to the carriage, feeling cheaper and more modern than we had done for some time. A new phase of sight-seeing was in store for us, and one with which we were even less fitted to compete. The inner life of a French country-house does not come within the scope of the ordinary tourist; and when, later in the afternoon, we were led up the curving and creeper-wreathed steps of a _château_, and ushered into an atmosphere of polished floors, still more polished manners, afternoon tea, and a billiard-table, there was only one drawback to perfect enjoyment of the situation. The ladies of the household--there were several of them--did not speak English, and at once that delusive glibness that had been nurtured by talking to Suzanne began to wither in the shadeless glare of drawing-room conversation. We shall never know what absurdities we said, or what _bêtises_ we committed; we can only feel satisfied that in a general way we said and did the wrong thing, and we can but ‘faintly trust the larger hope’ that our kind hosts made due allowance for insular imbecility. Whatever they may have thought of the strangers so unexpectedly brought within their gates, they kept alike their countenances and their counsel; and when the guests had faltered and smirked through their difficult farewells, and hidden their hot faces in the shelter of the landau, they were aware, as they drove away in the clear southern starlight, of two great fragrant bouquets of roses and heliotrope on the seat opposite, the last charming expression of the hospitality of the Médoc. CHAPTER VIII.