While she spoke she hastily completed a toilet, which, despite the Abbé's caution, had the appearance of incompleteness, and taking the great key from behind the door, led the way out into the glare of the setting sun. She unlocked the great gate and threw her weight against it with quick, firm movements like the movements of a man. Indeed, she was a better man than her companion; of a stronger common sense; with lither limbs and a stouter heart; the best man that France has latterly produced, and, so far as the student of racial degeneration may foretell, will ever produce again--her middle-class woman. Built close against the flanking tower on the left hand of the courtyard was a low, square house of two stories only. The whole ground floor was stabling, room and to spare for half a hundred horses, and filled frequently enough, no doubt, in the great days of the Great Henry. On the first floor, to which three or four staircases gave access, there were plenty of apartments; indeed, suites of them. But nearly all stood empty, and the row of windows looked blank and curtainless across the crumbling garden to the Italian house. It was one of the many tragedies of that smiling, sunny land where only man, it seems, is vile; for nature has enclosed within its frontier-lines all the varied wealth and beauty of her treasures. Marie led the way up the first staircase, which was straight and narrow. The carpet, carefully rolled and laid aside on the landing, was threadbare and colourless. The muslin curtains, folded back and pinned together, were darned and yellow with frequent washing and the rust of ancient damp. She opened the door of the first room at the head of the stairs. It had once been the apartment of some servitor; now it contained furniture of the gorgeous days of Louis XIV, with all the colour gone from its tapestry, all the woodwork grey and worm-eaten. "Not that one," said Marie, as the Abbé struggled with the lever that fastened the window. "That one has not been opened for many years. See! the glass rattles in the frame. It is the other that opens." Without comment the Abbé opened the other window and threw back the shutters, from which all the paint had peeled away, and let in the scented air. Mignonette close at hand--which had bloomed and died and cast its seed amid the old walls and falling stones since Marie Antoinette had taught the women of France to take an interest in their gardens; and from the great plains beyond--flat and fat--carefully laid there by the Garonne to give the world its finest wines, rose up the subtle scent of vines in bloom. "The drawing-room," said Marie, and making a mock-curtsey toward the door, which stood open to the dim stairs, she made a grand gesture with her hand, still red and wrinkled from the wash-tub. "Will the King of France be pleased to enter and seat himself? There are three chairs, but one of them is broken, so his Majesty's suite must stand."