wide, marble steps curved upward. Along the sides, the intricate carving was beautiful in its lacy delicateness.
At that moment, however, I was alarmed for my friend. His attitude was rigid, and his eyes were glassy. I put my hand on his shoulder. "Wrexler!"
My action galvanized him to life. "Another minute and she would have reached the last step! Now she is gone."
This was madness! There had been no one there. I said as much.
Wrexler turned and faced me. "But there was," he said eagerly, "the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, all done up in some old costume: great, wide skirts, little waist, and a high lace collar. She had bronze curls, great blue eyes and the loveliest face! I saw her immediately we came in. She looked at both of us, but she smiled at me!"
I was in a quandary. Until now I had not given the staircase more than a perfunctory glance. For all I knew, she might have been one of the servants, peeping to see her new master. To Wrexler, impressionable, strange creature that he was, the one glance might have so registered on his mind that he kept on seeing her; for certainly she had not been there when I looked. It seemed best to make light of the whole matter.
"Anyway, she's gone now, At least I can explain the costume. I take it you didn't hear Carrier's announcements?"
Wrexler shook his head. I proceeded to enlighten him.
Instead of teasing me about the strange conditions my father's will had imposed upon me, he was enthusiastic about the idea. "It's the one period in history that has always interested me! Jim, we're in luck! Imagine stepping back into Medici France for six months, shutting out the world! Who knows but that Catherine herself may have stayed here, or Marguerite de Valois—the Marguerite of Marguerites! Beautiful, but no more beautiful than that girl on the stairs. I can hardly wait to see her again."
I heartily hoped that he would see her, and that she was not entirely a creature of his imagination. If she was real, I too was eager to meet her.
Wrexler interrupted my thoughts.
"I feel as though I had come home," he said. "I'm crazy to explore. Let's go shed these ugly things and begin to really live. Why, it's been this I've been waiting for! It's lucky we're the same size."
Out of his irrelevance, I gathered the trend of his thought. "I wonder where we go," I began.
Almost as though he had heard my words, a tall, commanding figure stepped into the hall. He was attired richly in damask of a lovely, soft blue with the same slashes of crimson that the servant livery had shown, but in this case of finer material. He was a handsome man of about thirty-four. His beard was pointed and he had a small mustache. His long legs were encased in silken hose and he wore a dagger thrust through his belt.
"De Lacy, at your service, my lord," he announced as he made a deep bow.
I extended my hand, somewhat at a loss to know how to greet my father's steward, who was clearly a man of some importance and who, but for me, would be owner of Rougemont.
Instead of shaking hands, he dropped on one knee and kissed my hand—a proceeding which embarrassed me very much.
On my motioning him to rise, he did so with a lithe grace; "I suppose you want to change your strange clothes, my lord, and see your quarters?"
I nodded and introduced Wrexler. De Lacy bowed, "Monsieur Wrexler would like to be near you?" Then he added,
