It is only three miles from Clermont-Ferrand to the Chateau de Roquemartine, and we came to it easily, without inquiries, Jack having carefully studied the road map with Sir Samuel.  He had only to stop at the porter’s lodge to make sure we were right, and then to teuf-teuf up a long, straight avenue, sounding our musical siren as an announcement of our arrival.  It was only when I saw the fine old mansion on a terraced plateau, its creamy stone white as pearl in the moonlight, its rows upon rows of windows ablaze, that I remembered my position disagreeably.  I was going to stay at this charming place, as a servant, not as a member of the house-party.  I would have to eat in the servants’ hall—­I, Lys d’Angely, whose family had been one of the proudest in France.  Why, the name de Roquemartine was as nothing beside ours.  It had not even been invented when ours was already old.  What would my father say if he could see his daughter arriving thus at a house which would have been too much honoured by a visit from him?  I was suddenly ashamed.  My boasted sense of humour, about which I am usually such a Pharisee, sulked in a corner and refused to come out to my rescue, though I called upon it.  Funny it might be to eat in the kitchens of inns, but I could not feel that it was funny to be relegated to the servants’ brigade in the private house of a countryman of my father.

What queerly complicated creatures we little human animals are!  An avalanche of love hadn’t destroyed my hunger.  A knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and I can’t believe this was simply because I’m female.  I shouldn’t be surprised if a man might feel exactly the same—­or more so.

“Oh, dear!” I sighed.  “It’s going to be horrid here.  But”—­with a stab of remorse for my self-absorption—­“it’s just as bad for you as for me. You don’t need to stay in the house, though.  You’re a man, and free.  Don’t stop for my sake.  I won’t have it!  Please live in an inn.  There’s sure to be one near by.”

“I’m not going to look for it,” said my brother.  “You needn’t worry about me.  I’ve got pretty callous.  I shall have quarters for nothing here—­you’re always preaching economy.”

But I wouldn’t be convinced.  “Pooh!  You’re only saying that, so that I won’t think you’re sacrificing yourself for me.  Do you know anything about the Roquemartines?”

“A little.”

“Good gracious, I hope you’ve never met them?”

“I believe I lunched here with them once three years ago, with a motoring friend of theirs.”

He stated this fact so quietly, that, if I hadn’t begun to know him and his ways, I might have supposed him indifferent to the situation; but—­I can hardly say why—­I didn’t suppose it.  I supposed just the contrary; and I respected him, and his calmness, twenty times more than before, if that were possible.  Besides, I would have loved him twenty times more, only that was impossible.  How much stronger and better he was than I—­I, who blurted out my every feeling!  I, a stranger, felt the position almost too hateful for endurance, simply because it was ruffling to my vanity.  He, an acquaintance of these people, who had been their guest, resigned himself to herding with their servants, because—­yes, I knew it!—­because he would not let me bear annoyances alone.