Avignon that it sprung up refreshed, ready for more strange surprises;
and the grim grandeur of the scenery as we approached the ancient town
seemed to prophesy the mediæval towers and ramparts of the historic
city.

Skirting the huge city wall, the blue car was the one note of modernity;
but hardly had we turned in at a great gate worthy to open in welcome
for Queen Jeanne of Naples, or Bertrand du Guesclin, than we were in the
hum of twentieth-century life. I resented the change, for one expects
nothing, wants nothing, modern in Avignon; but in a moment or two we had
left the bright cafés and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle
ages. Anything, it seemed, might happen in the queer, shadowed streets
of tall old houses with mysterious doorways, through which the Aigle
cautiously threaded, like a glittering crochet needle practicing a new
stitch. Then, in the quiet _place_, asleep and dreaming of stirring
deeds it once had seen, we stopped before a dignified building more like
some old ducal family mansion than a hotel.

But it was a hotel, and we were to stop the night in it, leaving all
sightseeing for the next morning. Lady Turnour was tired. She had done
too much already for one day--with a reproachful glance at the chauffeur
whom she thus made responsible for her prostration. Nothing would induce
her to go out again that evening, and she thought that she would dine in
her own sitting-room. She didn't like old places, or old hotels, but she
supposed she would have to make the best of this one. She was a woman
who _never_ complained, unless it really was her duty, and then she
didn't hesitate.

This was her mood when getting out of the car, but inside the quaint and
charming house a look at the visitors' register changed it in a flash.