Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/21

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THE PETIT TRIANON
11

Versailles, where we had tea[1]; but we were neither of us inclined to talk, and did not mention any of the events of the afternoon. After tea we walked back to the station, looking on the way for the Tennis Court.

On the way back to Paris the setting sun at last burst out from under the clouds, bathing the distant Versailles woods in glowing light,—Valerien standing out in front a mass of deep purple. Again and again the thought returned,—Was Marie Antoinette really much at Trianon, and did she see it for the last time long before the fatal drive to Paris accompanied by the mob?

For a whole week we never alluded to that afternoon, nor did I think about it until I began writing a descriptive letter of our expeditions of the week before. As the scenes came back one by one, the same sensation of dreamy unnatural oppression came over me so strongly that I stopped writing, and said to Miss Lamont, "Do you think that the Petit Trianon is haunted?" Her answer was prompt,

  1. I remember that on account of the wind I put on my coat.