“Nonsense!” said M. Popeau, quite sharply for him. “Of course this cab is my affair. It’s going to take me back to the Hôtel de Paris. I intend to give the driver thirty francs—I had no idea it was as far.” At the top of a row of steps cut in the rocky bank was a wicket gate, on which were painted in fast-fading Roman letters the words “La Solitude.” The cabman opened the gate, and the three passed through 19into a grove of orange trees. Soon the steep path broadened into a way leading straight on to a lawn which fell sharply away from the stone terrace which formed the front of a long, low, whitewashed house. 19 In a sense, as M. Popeau’s shrewd eyes quickly realised, La Solitude had an air of almost gay prosperity. It was clear that the bright green shutters, those of the six windows of the upper storey and those of the windows which opened on to the terrace, had but recently been painted. Two blue earthenware jars, so large that they might well have formed part of the equipment of the Forty Thieves, stood at either end of the terrace, their comparatively narrow necks being filled with luxuriant red geranium plants, which fell in careless trails and patches of brilliant colour on the flagstones. Built out at a peculiar angle, to the left of the villa, was a windowless square building which looked like a studio. Lily was surprised to see that every window on the ground floor of the house had its blind drawn down, and that above the ground floor every window was shuttered. But that, as any foreigner could have told her, had nothing strange about it. Most people living in Southern Europe have an instinct for shutting out the sun, even the delightful sun of a southern winter day. Still, to Lily’s English eyes the drawn blinds and closed shutters gave a deserted, eerie, unlived-in look to La Solitude. As they all three stood there, M. Popeau and the driver having put down the luggage for a moment on the hard, dry grass, the first sign of life at La Solitude suddenly appeared in the person of a huge black and white cat. It crept slowly, stealthily, round the left-hand corner of the house, intent on some business, or victim, of its own, and rubbed itself along the warm wall. Lily felt a little tremor of surprise and discomfort. It was an odd coincidence that she should have seen in her dream-nightmare just such a cat as
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