The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE STAR OF ADVENTURE. time she smiled. But it was a frightened, haunted sort of smile that he was never to forget. And yet he didn’t smile back. The moment was too solemn. The Countess de Saint-Hilaire—dear old soul! —was for leaving them; but Mlle. de Valliéres would not hear of it. Impul- sively she kissed the countess and gave her a filial embrace. Inside the chateau they passed along the oak-paneled gallery with the panoplies and the battle-flags—the flags of Angou- léme and Valois, of Orléans and Bourbon. There was something fantastic and stir- ring about it all, for this night there was no steady and prosaic glow of electric light. Ancient custom was again trium- phant. Once more the hall was lighted as it would have been in the time of former kings—by a thousand flickering tapers, each taper blessed for the good of the cause. There were servants in livery every- where, as immobile as statues for the most part. A shriveled man in black, whom Chan had not previously seen, was appar- ently in charge of the chateau. He had advanced from the depths of the corridor, crooked but nimble, white, old, radiating energy, piercing of eye. “My grandfather’s chamberlain, M. de Briec,” whispered Mule. de Valliéeres. He heard her wishes and conducted them to a small cabinet off one end of the hall and saw that they were supplied with a lighted candelabrum. He drew aside a tapestry. A door appeared where there had been no door visible before. Then he bade them good evening. Chan, carrying the branched candle- stick, followed the ladies up the easy as- cent of an ancient flight of stairs built into a medieval wall. Like many of the historic chateaux of France the Chateau Lenoir was an architectural growth of the centuries. The beginnings of it went back to the fourteenth. From this dim period may have dated the stairway which they were now mount- ing—solid stone, worn concave by the feet 133 of men and women who had lived and loved and died before America was dreamed of. The steps wound leisurely around a column polished by vanished hands, and they found themselves in an upper corridor along one side of which were pointed arches. Sounds that had been vague be- fore now became distinct. The corridor was a concealed gallery along the upper part of the banqueting- room in which the conspirators were gath- ered. Chan held his breath. He had placed the candelabrum on the stone floor in re- sponse to a whispered command from Mlle. de Valliéres. Then he, she and the old Countess de Saint-Hilaire sought one of the pointed arches further on. The arch, curtained by a tapestry little thicker than a cobweb, must have been in- visible to the banqueters, but the room be- low was visible enough to the onlookers. There was a long table covered with silver and crystal. -At the head of this Chan saw his friend seated in a Gothic chair. Almost every one else there was old; but Chan felt the fingers of his hand twitching themselves into a fist as he picked out the face of another young man —dark, handsome, sinister—the face of the Marquis de Warren. Was Mlle. de Valliéres also looking at the marquis? Chan risked a glance at her. Not for the first time, but more forcibly than ever, he was assailed by the dilemma that confronted him. With her cousin on the throne of France she would be in- evitably lost to him. Yet he had pledged his aid, such as it was, to bring that event about. He had been trusted. He couldn’t draw back. Yet, written into the plans of this cam- paign, was the agreement to make her the bride—such things had always been—of some one of equal birth. There was a deepening silence in the chamber below. Then there rose. the deep, measured tones of a voice Chan rec- ognized as that of the Count du Barry. COnMICLOOOKS (C@)