About the middle of the evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an interesting tête-à-tête in the brilliant drawing-room with his handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him from the remote recesses of the entrance hall.
It was the merest of glimpses; for Victor’s casual glance had barely identified the servant when Nogam started guiltily and in a twinkling disappeared; but a glimpse was enough for eyes and a mind alike quick with distrust, enough to assure Victor that Nogam’s face had worn an indescribably furtive and hangdog expression, most unlike its ordinary look of amiable stupidity, and widely incongruous with the veniality of his fault.
What the deuce, then, was the fellow up to, that he should glower and dodge like a sleuth in a play?
Promptly Victor became deaf, blind, and numb to the fascinations so generously paraded by Lady Randolph West; and presently excusing himself, left her and sought his rooms.
As he went up the stairs, he saw the door to his bedchamber cautiously opened far enough to permit one eye to spy out and discover his approach. Immediately then the door swung wide, and Nogam ambled into view with an envelope on a salver and an air of childlike innocence, an assumption of ease so transparent, indeed, that only the vision of a child could have been cheated by it.
“Just coming to look for you, sir,” he announced, glibly. “Telegram, sir—just harrived.”
“Thanks,” said Victor, shortly, taking the envelope and marching on into his rooms.
His manner toward his servants was always abrupt. No need to be alarmed by this manifestation of it. Blinking mildly, Nogam trotted at his heels.
Seating himself at an escritoire, Victor opened the envelope with a display of languid interest. Curiosity about the contents of a telegram is ordinarily acute. Victor, on the contrary, sat for a long moment staring thoughtfully at nothing and absently turning the envelope over and over in his hands; while Nogam with specious nonchalance found something unimportant to do in another quarter of the room.
The envelope was damp and warm to the touch. True: nightfall had brought with it a thick drizzle, and Frampton Court was more than a mile from the post-office. On the other hand, the night was as cold as charity; and an envelope recently steamed open might be expected to hold the heat for a few minutes.