It was a huge room splendidly panelled with dark carved boiserie Louis XV, the most beautiful of its kind I had ever seen, only it was so dimly lit with the same sort of shaded lamps one could hardly see into the corners.
The Duke was crouching in a chair, he looked fearfully pale and ill, and had an inscrutable expression on his face. Fancy a man so old-looking, and crippled, being even Robert’s half-brother!
I came forward; he rose with difficulty, and this is the conversation we had.
“Please don’t get up,” I said, “if I may sit down opposite you.”
“Excuse my want of politeness,” he replied, pointing to a chair, “but my back is causing me great pain to-day.”
He looked such a poor miserable, soured, unhappy creature, I could not help being touched.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” I said. “If I had known you were ill, I would not have troubled you now.”
“Justice had better not wait,” he answered, with a whimsical, cynical, sour smile. “State your case.”
Then he suddenly turned on an electric lamp near me, which made a blaze of light in my face. I did not jump. I am glad to say I have pretty good nerves.