Vane brought his hand upon the table so that the glasses rocked.
"Oh," he exclaimed, "if one could only be sure! If one could see past the mask! What would I not give to believe in beauty when I see it, to trust to appearances! Oh, for the ability to put myself in the place of another, to know life from another plane than my own, to—"
But here he was interrupted.
CHAPTER III.
"The secret you are seeking," said the man who had put his hand on Orson Vane's shoulder, "is mine."
Vane's eyes widened slightly, roving the stranger up and down. He was a man of six feet in height, of striking, white-haired beauty, of the type made familiar to us by pictures of the Old Guard under Napoleon. Here was still the Imperial under the strong chin, the white mustache over the shapely lips; the high, clear forehead; the long, thin hands, where veins showed blue, and the nails were rosy. The head was bowed forward of the shoulders; the man, now old, had once been inches taller. You looked, on the spur of first noting him, for the sword and the epaulets, or, at least, for the ribbon of an order. But his clothes were quite plain, nor had his voice any touch of the military.
"I overheard a part of your conversation," the stranger went on, "not intentionally, yet unavoidably. I had either to move or to listen. And you see the place is so full that moving was out of the question. Did you mean what you were saying?"
"About the—"
"The Chinese wall," said the stranger.