There was a fresh pause. Vorski was obviously seeking his words and preparing the speech with which the implacable conflict between them was to open.
He was a man of athletic stature, with a powerful frame, legs slightly bowed, an enormous neck swollen by great bundles of muscles and a head unduly small, with fair hair plastered down and parted in the middle. That in him which at one time produced an impression of brute strength, combined with a certain distinction, had become with age the massive and vulgar aspect of a professional wrestler posturing on the hustings at a fair. The disquieting charm which once attracted the women had vanished; and all that remained was a harsh and cruel expression of which he tried to correct the hardness by means of an impassive smile.
He unfolded his arms, drew up a chair and, bowing to Véronique, said:
"Our conversation, madame, will be long and at times painful. Won't you sit down?"
He waited for a moment and, receiving no reply, without allowing himself to be disconcerted, continued:
"Perhaps you would rather first take some refreshment at the sideboard. Would you care for a biscuit and a thimbleful of old claret or a glass of champagne?"
He affected an exaggerated politeness, the essentially Teutonic politeness of the semibarbarians who are anxious to prove that they are familiar with all the niceties of civilization and that they have been initiated into every refinement of courtesy, even towards a woman whom the right of conquest would permit them to treat more cavalierly. This was one of the points of detail which in the past had most vividly enlightened Véronique as to her husband's probable origin.
She shrugged her shoulders and remained silent.
"Very well," he said, "but you must then authorize me to stand, as behooves a man of breeding who prides himself on possessing a certain amount of savoir faire. Also pray excuse me for appearing in your presence in this more than careless attire. Internment-camps and the caves of Sarek are hardly places in which it is easy to renew one's wardrobe."
He was in fact wearing a pair of old patched trousers and a torn red-flannel waistcoat. But over these he had donned a white linen robe which was half-closed by a knotted girdle. It was a carefully studied costume; and he accentuated its eccentricity by adopting theatrical attitudes and an air of satisfied negligence.