Two or three more servants appeared, in answer to the bell's noisy summons; yet such was still the paucity of attendants, that Madame de Beaumont, even while she descended from her carriage, and began to ascend the "grand escalier," had need to look, from time to time, at the splendid fresco paintings which decorated the walls, and the crowns and fleurs-de-lis with which all the cornices were ornamented, before she could satisfy herself that she really was in the royal chateau of St. Germain.
Pauline's eyes, fixed on the floor, wandered little to any of the objects round, yet, perhaps, the vast spaciousness of the palace, contrasted with the scarcity of its inhabitants, might cast even an additional degree of gloom over her mind, saddened, as it already was, by the occurrences of the day. Doubtless, in the remote parts of Languedoc, where Pauline de Beaumont had hitherto dwelt, gay visions of a court had come floating upon imagination like the lamps which the Hindoos commit to the waters of the Ganges, casting a wild and uncertain light upon the distant prospect; and it is probable, that even if St. Germain had possessed all its former splendour, Pauline would still have been disappointed, for youthful imagination always outrivals plain reality; and besides, there is an unpleasing feeling of solitude communicated by the aspect of a strange place, which detracts greatly from the first pleasure of novelty. Thus there were a thousand reasons why Mademoiselle de Beaumont, as she followed the attendant through the long empty galleries and vacant chambers of the palace, towards the apartments prepared for her mother and herself, felt none of those happy sensations which she had anticipated from her arrival at court; nor was it till, on entering the antechamber of their suite of rooms, she beheld the gay smiling face of her Lyonaise waiting-maid, that she felt there was any thing akin to old recollections within those cold and pompous walls, which seemed to look upon her as a stranger.
The soubrette had been sent forward the day before with a part of the Marchioness de Beaumont's equipage; and now, having endured a whole day's comparative silence with the patience and fortitude of a martyr, she advanced to the two ladies with loquacity in her countenance, as if resolved to make up, as speedily as possible, for the restraint under which her tongue had laboured during her short sojourn in the palace; but the deep gravity of Madame de Beaumont, and the melancholy air of her daughter, checked Louise in full career; so that, having kissed her mistress on both cheeks, she paused, while her lip, like an overfilled reservoir whose waters are trembling on the very brink, seemed ready to pour forth the torrent of words which she had so long suppressed.