Captain Desfrayne walked with hasty, irregular steps in the direction of his own home.
The servant who admitted him said that a person was waiting up-stairs, being earnestly desirous of an interview.
“I should not have let him wait, sir,” the man added apologetically, “only he said he had an appointment with you for to-day, and seemed so dreadfully disappointed because he didn’t see you.”
Captain Desfrayne had altogether forgotten that he had desired the Italian valet to call upon him. His conscience reproached him for what he considered selfishness, in being so engrossed; and he hurried up to his own apartments.
The doors of the inner rooms were locked; but there was a pleasant little antechamber, almost luxuriously furnished as a smoking-room.
This was now fully lighted from a handsome chandelier; and standing at the table in the center of the apartment was the tall, gaunt Italian who had claimed Captain Desfrayne’s sympathy the evening before.
The evening before! It seemed to Paul Desfrayne as if it must have been months since he had gone through that short, half-smiling interview with his mother.
The table was scattered over with newspapers, magazines, French novels, and other aids to kill time agreeably and intellectually at the same time.
As Captain Desfrayne entered, the Italian servant was looking at one of the papers intently—so much absorbed that his left hand unconsciously crushed it.
It was that day’s issue of an illustrated paper.