When at last he found her, what little energy James had left was gone. How strange the feeling of holding her while thoughts so isolated and dim, without a glimmer of joy, forced him down, drove him deeper into tired relief and then later the snow and the dark. After circling the plateau twice, finding nothing but empty ice-clad benches, he took the only refuge possible. Misreading the sign, he pushed instead of pulled, entered the chateau in a half-tumble. Not a word of French seemed to have remained in his head. He moved through the lobby. Dome-shaped, walls and ceiling crisscrossed with dark brown logs, it looked like a giant hearth or beaver dam. A bluestone chimney rose from the center of the room, fires blazing on each of its four sides, medieval lanterns fastened in pairs all the way to the ceiling. To enter from the outside was to be a piece of frozen meat, dripping, soft and scorching on the surface but solid ice underneath. There were mahogany leather armchairs and lamps made from gnarled pieces of driftwood. It smelled of wood smoke and meat gravy. Canadian and Quebec flags overhung the entrances to a series of corridors that must have led to the rooms. And sitting between two ushers in black blazers beside a table, on top of which a golden chess set sat open, game half-finished, she had taken her coat off and her hands were dug into cheeks red with cold. They went to one another and hugged.
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