and on the reverse side in a precise clear handwriting, “May I request you to call at my cabin at your convenience?—Rondell.”
Morton hesitated but an instant. “Tell his Excellency I shall be with him right away.”
Anything was better than this moping, and the Count was the very companion to brush away the cobwebs from his mind. He stuffed his papers into the nearest table drawer, gave a cursory examination to his appearance before the mirror, locked his cabin door and sauntered over to the Count’s quarters.
Why had Count Rondell sent for him? He wondered.
CHAPTER IV
WHEN Morton entered Count Rondell’s stateroom he found him standing behind a small flat desk in the middle of the room, his commanding, almost gaunt figure erect and tense. As he looked at the man, he experienced the same peculiar sensation he had felt upon receipt of the message asking him to call—a sense of indefinable anxiety mingled with curiosity.
In response to an expressive motion of the slender pale hands he seated himself opposite the Count. His eyes slowly traveled around the stateroom and noted its appearance in some detail.
Two swinging bracket lamps lit up the wall to his right, leaving the lower part of the room in deep shadow. The stateroom itself, somewhat roomier than the customary steamer cabin, had been transformed into a rather pleasing den. Along the lighted walls a low couch in some dark plush was enlivened by the brilliant coloring of a leopard skin thrown carelessly over the back and by a saddle-bag in bright crimson and gold. Above it were fastened a garniture of Persian helmet, shield and battle-axe, the gold inlay upon the damascene scintillating in the slightly moving light which fell upon it.