He was once more to her the baby of yore, caressing and altogether delicious, and her heart gave a great bound. “My dear, my dear!” she said, choking a little. “Do you think I’d really interfere with your career? Who’d you take me for? No, no! You’ll come to us after the great manœuvers, and then enjoy your holidays without any qualms of conscience--a bad thing to take about on such occasions. But remember that I just adore you, my little ‘Polo.’ And now, Jean, when shall we start?” “To-morrow if you can manage it,” he replied, and she instantly acquiesced. CHAPTER XVII The pit-like dark, th’ impassioned prayers and saintly For souls abroad, the life-boat barely inned, The desperate sirens laboring far and faintly To pierce the wall of wind. Salvières was at its very best when its owners arrived there with their little nephew--for even midsummer heat is on the Normandy coast entirely bearable--and more so. Like Plenhöel, it stands on a lofty cliff fronting a magnificent sea view. The Castle dates back to the early days of the Duchy, and is built in two, and in some parts in three, stories of singularly massive blocks of granite, with cloisters above and below--that is, on the side facing the open country and the Vallée de Salvières, which alone deserves quite a separate description, so unique and beautiful it is. Of course it is quite needless to add that the Castle and its dependencies are of the purest and most ancient Gothic architecture. The _Salle des Chevaliers_ is a marvelous place at the upper end of which an equestrian silver statue of the illustrious Knight Jehan de Salvières, first of the name, gleams in the prismatic lights of a huge _vitraille_, whose sunset tints of rich orange, vivid scarlet, lucent blue, and emerald green surround it with a glory of blinding color. The walls of the _enceinte_ crown the whole promontory and inclose the immensity of château, chapel, towers, keep, _Cour-d’Honneur_, armory, and _place-d’armes_--not to mention an inner garden of such extent that its measurements would only court contradiction from those who have not seen it--which, to say the least, is a misfortune not to be atoned for by loudly proclaimed skepticism. At any rate, Salvières would be one of the most remarkable show-places of France and Navarre, more so than even St.-Michel, Josselin, Chenonceax, or Chambord, _Le Château de la Reine Jeanne_, Couci, or Arthèze de Foix, were it not for the fact that neither Jean nor Tatiana, since their reign there, had cared to have a flock of Cook’s tourists clattering over its beautiful floors, or measuring its art treasures by the length of their umbrellas with guttural yelps of amazement and wonder--when not exclamations of incredulity, and sometimes worse than incredulity, where religious pictures or objects of faith are concerned.