Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 3, 2025
She was standing absorbed in these thoughts before the fireplace, her elbow resting on the marble mantel-shelf. When the porte-cochere closed behind the carriage of the two notaries, she turned to her future son-in-law, impatient to solve her doubts. "This has been the most terrible day of my life," cried Paul, overjoyed to see all difficulties vanish.
"Good luck!" she tried to call cheerfully, in spite of her misgivings. Long after his car had disappeared in the distance she stood there gazing after it, a world of anxiety in her eyes. Darkness had settled down upon Brent Rock, following the departure of Locke, when a trim runabout drew up under the porte-cochère and Dora stepped lightly out of it.
"It is much better than making a mystery of it," she thought. "The man will think that I have come to see a milliner or some one of that kind." The footman would fain have escorted Mrs. Granger the way she should go, and held himself in readiness to accompany her into the house; but she waved him aside on the threshold of the darksome porte-cochere, out of which no coach ever came nowadays.
To right of the courtyard are the stables and coach-house; to left, the kitchen, wood-house, and laundry. One side of the porte-cochere, being left open, allowed the passers in the street to see in the midst of the vast courtyard a flower-bed, the raised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge.
"As Signor Fantoccini, or as Mr. Comstalk?" "I have long since resigned my position in the museum; it was too exciting." She made no rejoinder; and for some time there was no sound but the music of the bells. Finally we drew up under the colonial portè-cochere of Hollywood Inn and were welcomed by the genial Moriarty himself, his Celtic countenance a mirror of smiles.
The former, barring the way to a weed- and grass-grown drive, was hermetically sealed by rust; while the other was just as permanently fixed open by the accumulation of earth and gravel about its lower part. Two parallel rows of ragged, untrimmed privet designated the tortuous way of the drive to the unused porte-cochère. "Nasty case," Stodger was imparting, in queer staccato sentences.
A pedestrian under these circumstances is forced to stop short and take refuge in a shop or cafe if he is rich enough to pay for the forced hospitality, or, if in poorer circumstances, under a porte-cochere, that haven of paupers or shabbily dressed persons.
Having passed the Rue de la Ville-l'Évêque, and entered the Rue d'Anjou, I soon reached the porte-cochère of my friend. My servant knocked, and very loudly, but before the Swiss porter would open the door, he reconnoitred from the window in the entresol of his lodge.
One would have said that it was a great curtain sheltering the long, untroubled sleep of wealth, a thick curtain behind which nothing could be heard save the soft closing of a porte-cochère, the rattling of the milkmen's tin cans, the bells of a herd of asses trotting by, followed by the short, panting breath of their conductor, and the rumbling of Jenkins' coupé beginning its daily round.
As he stood there he heard the heavy sound of the massive porte-cochere closing. Two men were leaving the hotel de la Chanterie. If the reader has fully understood the character of this old house he will know that it was one of the ancient mansions of the olden time. Manon, herself, when she called Godefroid that morning, had asked him, smiling, how he had slept in the hotel de la Chanterie.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking