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Page 108
CHAPTER XXVI
IN MADAME'S ROOM
Madame de St�mer's apartment was a large and elegant one. From the
window-drapings, which were of some light, figured satiny material, to
the bed-cover, the lampshades and the carpet, it was French. Faintly
perfumed, and decorated with many bowls of roses, it reflected, in its
ornaments, its pictures, its slender-legged furniture, the personality
of the occupant. In a large, high bed, reclining amidst a number of
silken pillows, lay Madame de St�mer. The theme of the room was violet
and silver, and to this everything conformed. The toilet service was of
dull silver and violet enamel. The mirrors and some of the pictures had
dull silver frames, There was nothing tawdry or glittering. The bed
itself, which I thought resembled a bed of state, was of the same dull
silver, with a coverlet of delicate violet I hue. But Madame's
d�collet� robe was trimmed with white fur, so that her hair, dressed
high upon her head, seemed to be of silver, too.
Reclining there upon her pillows, she looked like some grande dame of
that France which was swept away by the Revolution. Immediately above
the dressing-table I observed a large portrait of Colonel Menendez
dressed as I had imagined he should be dressed when I had first set
eyes on him, in tropical riding kit, and holding a broad-brimmed hat in
his hand. A strikingly handsome, arrogant figure he made, uncannily
like the Velasquez in the library.
At the face of Madame de St�mer I looked long and searchingly. She had
not neglected the art of the toilette. Blinds tempered the sunlight
which flooded her room; but that, failing the service of rouge, Madame
had been pale this morning, I perceived immediately. In some subtle way
the night had changed her. Something was gone out of her face, and
something come into it. I thought, and lived to remember the thought,
that it was thus Marie Antoinette might have looked when they told her
how the drums had rolled in the Place de la Revolution on that morning
of the twenty-first of January.
"Oh, M. Knox," she said, sadly, "you are there, I see. Come and sit
here beside me, my friend. Val, dear, remain. Is this Inspector
Aylesbury who wishes to speak to me?"
The Inspector, who had entered with all the confidence in the world,
seemed to lose some of it in the presence of this grand lady, who was
so little impressed by the dignity of his office.
She waved one slender hand in the direction of a violet brocaded chair.
"Sit down, Monsieur l'inspecteur," she commanded, for it was rather a
command than an invitation.
Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and sat down.
"Ah, M. Knox!" exclaimed Madame, turning to me with one of her rapid
movements, "is your friend afraid to face me, then? Does he think that
he has failed? Does he think that I condemn him?"
"He knows that he has failed, Madame de St�mer," I replied, "but his
absence is due to the fact that at this hour he is hot upon the trail
of the assassin."
"What!" she exclaimed, "what!"--and bending forward touched my arm.
"Tell me again! Tell me again!"
"He is following a clue, Madame de St�mer, which he hopes will lead to
the truth."
"Ah! if I could believe it would lead to the truth," she said. "If I
dared to believe this."
"Why should it not?"
She shook her head, smiling with such a resigned sadness that I averted
my gaze and glanced across at Val Beverley who was seated on the
opposite side of the bed.
"If you knew--if you knew."
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