"Pedro," he called, and a strange-looking Spanish butler who wore his
side-whiskers like a bull fighter appeared behind his master; a sallow,
furtive fellow with whom I determined I should never feel at ease.
However, the Colonel greeted us heartily enough, and conducted us
through a kind of paved, covered courtyard into a great lofty hall.
Indeed it more closely resembled a studio, being partly lighted by a
most curious dome. It was furnished in a manner quite un-English, but
very luxuriously. A magnificent oaken staircase communicated with a
gallery on the left, and at the foot of this staircase, in a mechanical
chair which she managed with astonishing dexterity, sat Madame de
Staemer.
She had snow-white hair crowning the face of a comparatively young
woman, and large, dark-brown eyes which reminded me strangely of the
eyes of some animal although in the first moment of meeting I could not
identify the resemblance. Her hands were very slender and beautiful,
and when, as the Colonel presented us, she extended her fingers, I was
not surprised to see Harley stoop and kiss them in Continental fashion;
for this Madame evidently expected.
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