“’Nk you, sir.”
“But Nogam: in this house, regardless of the custom which may have obtained in other establishments where you have served, you will always knock before entering a room, and never enter until you obtain permission.”
“But if I’m sure the room is empty, sir, and get no answer—?”
“Then you may enter any room but this. Never this, unless I am here—or Mr. Karslake is—and you get leave.”
“’Nk you, sir.”
“Good-night.”
As the door closed Victor extended a thin, effeminate hand to a casket of ivory, searched with sensitive finger-tips its exquisite tracery until a cunningly hidden spring responded and the lid, splitting in two, sank down into its walls. In the pocket thus revealed were many pills, apparently hand-moulded, of a grayish-brown substance, putty-soft.
Slowly Victor selected three, placed one after another upon his tongue, and swallowed them.
He shut the casket and sat waiting.
Slowly the keenness of his countenance became blurred, as if the hand of an unseen sculptor were rubbing down its features, doing away the veneer with which Europe had overlaid the primitive Asiatic, which now showed on the surface, in every detail of coarsely modelled nose, oblique eyes of animal cunning, pendulous lips cruel and sensual.