Then he was conscious of his own voice speaking half-aloud:
"Slivers Martin paid me ten for 'em an' I got 'em for seven—an' he had to go after 'em."
The words had come involuntarily—as from another personality speaking with his tongue, and they startled him. With a fiercely impatient gesture he brushed his hand across his forehead and picked up from a table a new appreciation of the life and campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Yamuro slipped in with his cushioned tread and stood awaiting orders, and after a while the master whose attention refused to remain fixed even on Napoleon glanced up.
"You may go, Yamuro," he said in a wearied voice, but the Japanese valet did not go. Instead he approached and his face grew anxious as he noted the confused and fatigued droop of his master's eyes and lips.
"'Scuse, please," he hazarded as his white teeth flashed in an apologetic grin. "You tired. You go down gymnasium—take ex'cise—one half-hour. Yes, one half-hour and me rub you Japanese way; make you sleep—yes, please."
Hamilton Burton raised his head slowly. "Perhaps," he acceded in a dull voice, "that mightn't be a bad idea. I do feel a bit fagged—for some reason—and I need to be fit tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a decisive day."
So with the narrow-eyed little servitor in whose breast beat a heart of unquestioning loyalty, the untriumphant victor went down into the basement of his house, where between marble slabs and porphyry columns he had equipped a small gymnasium finished with the magnificence of a Roman bath.
Beyond an arched portal was another room where the basin of a swimming-pool spread cool and inviting between mosaic floors.
Here each morning Hamilton plunged into the icy water and came out with a splendid vitality glowing on his firm flesh. But at night he used only the warm shower and when they came into the gymnasium they did not touch the switch which lighted the pool.