He was utterly out of harmony with his surroundings. It might be that he was aware of this, for when he saw his image in the ostentatious mirrors he very slightly smiled, and not pleasantly.
The sunlight entered by the tall bare window and lay in a great square on the highly coloured carpet, dazzling in its passage on the flaunting gold of furniture and pictures.
Lord Lyndwood paced to and fro, glancing, when he reached the window, at the green chariot below, with its idle admirers, and at the empty street beyond, and when he reached the great glass the other end of the chamber at the reflection of his own superb person with that slight and sneering smile.
He was by the window when the heavy-carved door quickly opened, and a man stepped into the room.
Lord Lyndwood stood where he was.
"Good morning, Mr. Hilton," he said.
The new-comer advanced.
"I have kept you waiting, my lord," he said. "A domestic matter detained me."
He looked at the Earl gravely, yet intently, and came nearer. He was a middle-aged man, heavy in build, with a commonplace countenance imparted by ambitions satisfied and a prosperity hardly attained and keenly relished.