Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/38

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
28
AN ADVENTURE

I really felt a great reluctance to go near the window or look in, and when I did so I found it shuttered inside.

Coming away from the Hameau I at last reached a building, which I knew from my plan to be the smaller Orangerie; then, meaning to go to the Belvédère, I turned back by mistake into the park and found myself in a wood, so thick that though I had turned towards the Hameau I could not see it. Before I entered I looked across an open space towards a belt of trees to the left of the Hameau some way off, and noticed a man, cloaked like those we had seen before, slip swiftly through the line of trees. The smoothness of his movement attracted my attention.

I was puzzling my way among the maze of paths in the wood when I heard a rustling behind me which made me wonder why people in silk dresses came out on such a wet day; and I said to myself, "just like French people." I turned sharply round to see who they were, but saw no one, and then, all in a moment, I had the same feeling as by the terrace in the summer, only in a much greater degree; it was as though I were closed in by a group of people