"Show Doctor Undershaw in here."
And standing on the rug, every muscle in his tall and still vigorous frame tightening in expectation of the foe, he looked frowning round the chaos of his room. Pictures, with or without frames, and frames without pictures; books in packing-cases with hinged sides, standing piled one upon another, some closed and some with the sides open and showing the books within; portfolios of engravings and drawings; inlaid or ivory boxes, containing a medley of objects—miniatures, snuff-boxes, buttons, combs, seals; vases and plates of blue and white Nankin; an Italian stucco or two; a Renaissance bust in painted wood; fragments of stuff, cabinets, chairs, and tables of various dates and styles—all were gathered together in one vast and ugly confusion. It might have been a salone in one of the big curiosity shops of Rome or Venice, where the wrecks and sports of centuries are heaped into the piano nobile of some great building, once a palazzo, now a chain of lumber rooms. For here also, the large and stately library, with its nobly designed bookcases—still empty of books—its classical panelling, and embossed ceiling, made a setting of which the miscellaneous plunder within it was not worthy. A man of taste would have conceived the beautiful room itself as suffering from the disorderly uses to which it was put.
Only, in the centre, the great French table, the masterpiece of Riesener, still stood respected and unencumbered. It held nothing but a Sèvres inkstand and pair of candle-sticks that had once belonged to Madame Elisabeth. Mrs. Dixon dusted it every morning, with a feather brush, generally under the eyes of Melrose. He himself regarded it with a fanatical veneration; and one of the chief pleasures of his life was to beguile some passing dealer into making an offer for it, and then contemptuously show him the door.
"Doctor Undershaw, Muster Melrose."
Melrose stood to arms.
A young man entered, his step quick and decided. He was squarely built, with spectacled gray eyes, and a slight brown moustache on an otherwise smooth face. He looked what he was—competent, sincere, and unafraid.
Melrose did not move from his position as the doctor approached, and barely acknowledged his bow. Behind the sarcasm of his voice the inner fury could be felt.
"I presume, sir, you have come to offer me your apologies?"
Undershaw looked up.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Melrose, to have inconvenienced you and your household. But really after such an accident there was nothing else to be done. I am certain you would have done the same yourself. When I first saw him, the poor fellow was in a dreadful state. The only thing to do was to carry him into the nearest shelter and look after him. It was—I assure you—a case of life and death."