“You do still think that nobody should dine later than six, don't you? I have ordered dinner for six to-night.”
“Six!” exclaimed the Count, but recovering himself, added, “An ideal hour—and it is half-past five now. Perhaps I had better think of dressing.”
“What YOU call dressing!” smiled Julia, to his justifiable amazement. “Let me show you to your room.”
She led him upstairs, and finally stopped before an open door.
“There!” she said, with an air of pride. “It is really my father's bedroom when he is at home, but I've had it specially prepared for YOU! Is it just as you would like?”
Bunker was incapable of observing anything very particularly beyond the fact that the floor was uncarpeted, and as nearly free from furniture as a bedroom floor could well be.
“It is ravishing!” he murmured, and dismissed her with a well-feigned smile.
Bereft even of expletives, he gazed round the apartment prepared for him. It was a few moments before he could bring himself to make a tour of its vast bleakness.
“I suppose that's what they call a truckle-bed,” he mused. “Oh, there is one chair—nothing but cold water-towels made of vegetable fibre apparently. The devil take me, is this a reformatory for bogus noblemen!”
He next gazed at the bare whitewashed wall. On it hung one picture—the portrait of a strangely attired man.