"It is the face of the young woman in the picture!"
"And now," said Virdow, again placing the marble so as to cast its outlines upon the wall, "you do not recognize it, but the profile is your own!"
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TRADE WITH SLIPPERY DICK.
Amos Royson, in the solitude of his room, had full time for reflection upon the events of the week and upon his position. His face, always sinister, had not improved under its contact with the heavy dueling pistol driven so savagely against it. The front teeth would be replaced and the defect concealed under the heavy mustache he wore, and the cut and swollen lips were resuming their normal condition. The missing finger, even, would inconvenience him only until he had trained the middle one to discharge its duties—but the nose! He trembled with rage when for the hundredth time he studied his face in the glass and realized that the best skill of the surgeon had not been able to restore its lines.
But this was not the worst. He had carefully scanned the state press during his seclusion and awoke from his personal estimate to find that public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. He had slandered a man for political purposes and forced a fight upon a stranger to whom, by every right of hospitality, the city owed a welcome. The general public could not understand why he had entered upon the duel if his charges were true, and if not true why he had not had the manliness to withdraw them.
Moreover, he had incurred the deadly enmity of the people who had been deceived in the lost county. One paper alluded to the unpleasant fact that Edward Morgan was defending and aiding Mr. Royson's connections at the time of the insult.
He had heard no word from Swearingen, who evidently felt that the matter was too hot at both ends for him to handle safely. That gentleman had, on the contrary, in a brief card to one of the papers, disclaimed any knowledge of the unfortunate letter and declined all responsibility for it. This was sufficient, it would seem, to render almost any man unhappy, but the climax was reached when he received a letter from Annie, scoring him unmercifully for his clumsiness and informing him that Edward Morgan, so far from being destroyed in a certain quarter, was being received in the house as a friend to whom all were indebted, and was petted and made much of.
"So far as I can judge," she added, maliciously, "it seems settled that Mary is to marry him. He is much with Col. Montjoy and is now upon a confidential footing with everyone here. Practically he is already a member of the family." It contained a request for him to inform her when he would be in his office.