Publisher's Synopsis
When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of the Chateau, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt. "What have you done with the garden?" he asked, his lip curling. "My father removed it to the other side of the house," I answered. "Out of sight?" "Yes," I said; "it is beyond the rose garden." "English fashion!" he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. "And you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?" "Yes," I said, "I do." "Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the house?" "Yes." He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I notice that that is the way of all who prate of the people, and freedom, and fraternity. They love the people; but they love them at a distance, on the farther side of a park or a high yew hedge. Now, at St. Alais I like to have my folks under my eye, and then, if they do not behave, there is the carcan. By the way, what have you done with yours, Vicomte? It used to stand opposite the entrance." "I have burned it," I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples. "Your father did, you mean?" he answered, with a glance of surprise."
