The room in which we dined was a more sombre apartment than the others I had seen. The walls were hung with heavy tapestries, unrelieved by light or brilliant colour. The servants also struck me as remarkable. They were tall, elderly, dark-skinned, and, if the truth must be told, of somewhat saturnine appearance, and if I had been asked, I should have given my vote against their being Italians. They did their duty noiselessly and well, but their presence grated upon me, very much as Pharos's had done on the first three occasions that I had met him. Among other things, one singular circumstance arrested my attention. While the dinner was in every respect admirable, and would not have discredited the Maison Dorée, or the Café de la Paix, Pharos did not partake of it. At the commencement of the meal a dish of fruit and a plate of small flat cakes were placed before him. He touched nothing else, save, when we had finished, to fill a wineglass with water and to pour into it a spoonful of some white powder, which he took from a small silver box standing before him. This he tossed off at one draught.
"You are evidently surprised," he said, turning toward me, "at the frugality of my fare, but I can assure you that in my case eating has been reduced almost to a vanishing point. Save a little fruit in the morning, and a glass of water in which I dissolve one of these powders, and a meal similar to that you now see me making in the evening, I take nothing else, and yet I am stronger than many men of half my age. If the matter interests you I will some day give you proof of that."
To this speech I made some reply and then glanced at the Fräulein Valerie. Her face was still deathly pale, and I could see by the way her hands trembled above her plate that the old fellow's words had in some manner been the cause of it. Had I known as much then as I do now I should no doubt have trembled myself. For the moment, however, I thought she must be ill, and should have said as much had my eyes not met hers and found them imploring me to take no notice of her agitation. I accordingly addressed myself to Pharos on the subject of the journey from Paris to Naples, and thus permitted her time to recover her self-possession. The meal at an end, she rose and left the room, not, however, before she had thrown another look of entreaty at me, which, as I read it, seemed to say, "For pity's sake remember where you are, and be careful what you say or do!"
The door had scarcely closed behind her before another on the other side of the room opened, and a servant entered carrying in his arms a monkey wrapped in a small rug, from which its evil-looking little face peered out at me as if it were wondering at my presence there. Pharos noticed my surprise.
"Let me make you acquainted with my second self," he said, and then turning to the monkey continued, "Pehtes, make your salutation."
The monkey, however, finding himself in his master's arms, snuggled himself down and paid no more attention to me, whereupon Pharos pushed the decanters, which the servant had placed before him, toward me and invited me to fill my glass.
I thanked him, but declined.
"If you will permit me to say so, I think you are foolish," he answered. "I have been often complimented on that wine, particularly by your countrymen."
I wondered who the countrymen were who had sat at this table and what the reason could have been that had induced them to accept his hospitality. Could Legrath have been among the number, and, if so, what was the terrible connection between them? For terrible I knew it must have been, otherwise it would scarcely have made Sir George, usually the most self-contained of men, betray such agitation when I inquired if he were acquainted with the name of Pharos.
While these thoughts were passing through my mind I stole a glance at the old fellow as he sat at the head of the table, propped up with cushions, and with the monkey's evil countenance peeping out from his hiding-place under the other's coat. He was evidently in an expansive mood and as anxious as possible to make himself agreeable. The first horror of his presence had by this time left me, and, as I said at the commencement of this chapter, its place had been taken by a peculiar interest for which I found it well-nigh impossible to account.