Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/87

 fears and visions. Thinking of the other day and of the foreboding that had seized him, took him far back into his childhood, linked him with the wild-eyed little boy who had rushed down from his room to take refuge with his father on a winter night, and who could never tell or explain what the dark fear—or presence—had been that had wakened him. But no; it had not been fear the other day. Not fear exactly.

Behind the reddening branches of the sycamores the Manoir to-day, freaked with swaying sunlight, looked like the happiest sort of Sickert; that, at best, was not very happy, to be sure; but the Manoir, too, seemed exorcised. If magic there were, it was no longer a dark magic. And no figure came round the house as he stood on the doorstep; no blind old dog. No woman with a pale face framed in black.

Joseph opened to his knock, and Joseph, too, showed signs of revival, looked as if the spring had penetrated to his doleful bones. Madame la comtesse, he told him, was upstairs in her room; he would apprise her of Monsieur's coming. Mademoiselle was in the salon. And so saying he ushered him in and Graham found himself face to face with Mademoiselle Ludérac.

She had, apparently, but just come in from a country walk, for a basket of the wild daffodils stood on the table and a number of vases, most of them already filled, were ranged about it. She was coming down the room, two vases in her hands, and for a moment she stopped short on seeing him, rather as she had stopped