"I am sorry. Pray forgive my manner. An old soldier, you know, drops now and again into the drill manner."
"American women do not take kindly to drilling, General."
"No, no, Miss Gilmore; you must acquit me of any intention to offend you. I wish to speak to you seriously. Pray sit down again."
I should have been intensely sorry to have ended so promising an interview, so I sat down and stared stonily at him. He was one of those vulture-faced old men, with a large hook nose, a wide mouth, and a small square chin, which when he spoke suggested irresistibly the moving lower bill of the bird. He had dark, piercing, beady eyes, rather deep set under prominent eyebrows, and a waxen white forehead, rounded like a bird's poll.
"I wish to speak to you about Count Gustav."
"Yes?"
"I am a friend of his and his family, and possess their confidence, and being also a friend of General von Erlanger's, I thought it would be desirable for me to speak with you."
"Yes?"
"As a mutual friend, if I may say so, and an old man of long experience of the world."
"Yes?" I said again, maintaining the same stony stare.