CHAPTER X.
AUCTIO FIT: VENIT VITA.
In his spacious chestnut-panelled parlour, in a high-backed oaken chair that had throned for centuries the Abbots of Bellerive, Messer Blondel sat brooding with his chin upon his breast.

The chestnut-panelled parlour was new.

The shields of the Cantons which formed a frieze above the panels shone brightly, the or and azure, gules and argent of their quarterings, undimmed by time or wood-smoke.

The innumerable panes of the long heavily leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Four were still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still found something garish in the portrait of the Syndic--by Schouten--that formed the central panel of the mantelpiece.

New and stately, the room had not its pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, a very short time before.