"Have I offended you?" he asked at length, in an humble tone, contrasting piteously with the coldness of that in which she replied.
"Who am I, to be offended? My only business is to obey. The Patron bids me watch here till you sleep."
So he shut his eyes, yet not too tight, and scanned her the while covertly beneath their lids, thus detecting on her face, when she turned it towards him, a look of tender wistful longing, that told only too plainly the secret of her love.
Then he drew a deep breath of relief and contentment, satisfied he would rise a winner from the unequal game and so fell sound asleep.
[CHAPTER V.]
A CHARLATAN.
In the surgery Katerfelto began to prepare for the reception of his visitors. Standing at a bright little mirror, he was soon immersed in the task. A spot of carmine on the cheek-bones, a line or two of paint round the mouth, about the eyes, and across the forehead added a score of years to his appearance and made him look a man of eighty. A flowing white beard, in which his own grey tresses mingled freely, and a black cloak bordered with crimson, drawn over the velvet gown, completed his equipment. Surveying the whole in his glass, he drew himself up, with something of the confidence a knight must have felt when armed from head to heel. "Come one, come all," he seemed to say, "I am a match for the best of you, and profitable as is the victory, I am not sure but the real pleasure consists in the strife!—"
The plot thickened with nightfall. He was hardly ready before a cautious tap made itself heard at the street door. Waif, watching her patient's slumbers, flew to admit the visitor, and was at her post again ere he had time to pay a single compliment on her good looks.