This foreigner made me no bow at all, though I expected a very grand one; he took me quietly by both hands, and said, "I am very glad to know you. Will you do me the favour of coming to my room?"
The light of my eyes, and of his as well,—for that could be seen in half a glance,—vanished with a smile; and I followed my host through a narrow stone-passage to an ancient door, studded with nails and iron fleurs-de-lis. That solid henchman was standing on guard, whom I had seen before, and known as Stepan; and inside lay that other mighty dog, of whom I had seen but little as yet, Orla, the son of Kuban. The room was not large, but much loftier than the rooms of an old dwelling-house would be, and the walls were not papered nor painted, but partly covered with bright hangings, among which mirrored sconces were fixed, with candles burning in some of them. Stepan soon set the rest alight, so that the cheerful and pleasant aspect of the whole surprised me. But against the walls were ranged on shelves, betwixt the coloured hangings, metallic objects of a hundred shapes, tools, castings, appliances, implements unknown to me, and pieces of mechanism, enough to puzzle my brother Harold, or any other great inventor. But although they were not in my line at all, I longed to know what they were meant for.
"One of the great and peculiar features of the English nation," my host said, with a friendly smile, and slow but clear pronunciation, "according to my experience is, that they never show much curiosity about things that do not concern them. A Frenchman, a German, an Italian would scarcely have cast his eyes round this room, without eager desire arising in his bosom to know what the use of all these things may be. Even if he were too polite to enquire, he would contrive to fill me with some conclusion of a duty to him—the duty of exposing to him my own affairs. With you it is entirely different. You do not even entertain a wish, you are free from all little desires to learn what could not in any way be your own business."
All this he put not as a question, but a statement of facts long proven. Whereas I was pricked internally with a very sharp curiosity. Could he be chaffing me? I almost thought he must be, so far were his words from describing my condition. But on the other hand it would be too absurd, for a foreigner to attempt to chaff an Englishman in his own language, and at the first conversation. So I tried to look as if I deserved the whole of his compliments, and more. For I never like to think that a man is chaffing me; not even one of my own nation, and of proper rank to do it. Two bad turns of mind at once ensue, contempt of myself for being slow, and anger with him for discovering it.
"That is all a trifle," continued Prince Imar; for so I felt inclined to call him now, to console myself for having such a cut beyond me—"But I did not bring you here for a trifle, Mr. Cranleigh. You Englishmen think very little of yourselves. Not in comparison with foreigners, I mean; for when it comes to that you have much self-respect. I mean with regard to your own bodies. You detest what you call a fuss about them, such as the gallant Frenchman makes. But, as this has happened to you on our behalf, you will not deny my right to learn what it is. I am not a man of medicine, but I have been present among many wounds. Will you do me the favour of allowing me to see what has happened?"
It would not be right for any one to say that I had fallen under this man's influence. No doubt I did that, when I came to know him better. But as for any abject prostration of will, on the part of any healthy and sane man to another, at first sight, and through some occult power, some "odylic force," and so on—let the people believe in that, who can do, or feel it. Nevertheless I showed him what had happened, because that was common sense.
And he took it strictly as a thing of common sense. "You have done the very best that could be done," he said, after looking at it carefully; "it is a bad rent, even worse than I expected, and there will always be a long scar there. But it will not lessen the power of the arm, if there is no other mischief. One thing is very important to know. Of the two dogs, which inflicted that wound?"
I told him that I could not pretend to say, having been in the thick of it between the two. And it had not occurred to me to think it out since then. But remembering all I could of the ups and downs, I thought it more likely that his dog had done it, having been so much more up in the air, while the bull-dog fought low, and was striving to grip upward. Probably Kuban was making a rush at his foe, while I tried to get him by the neck.
"I hope with all my heart that it was so," my host replied very cheerfully; "for then we need have no fear of any bad effects. There is no venom in the teeth of our noble mountain breed. But you will leave yourself to me."