But M. Thiers had endured the ordeal with a courteous kind of resignation, only looking at his watch from time to time, or glancing at the clock over which presided the horned, bat-winged, cloven-hoofed and tailed figure that tickled the fancy of his oppressor so much.
"His Excellency expected me," he said. "There has been no mistake about the time of the appointment—named by himself at our previous interview. The greatness of the interests concerned are apprehensible by His Excellency!"
The mild sarcasm rebounded pointless from Von Keudell's bluff rejoinder:
"No, no mistake at all. His Excellency has merely shifted the hour. From half-past twelve to a quarter to one—His Excellency found it more convenient."
"What boors are these Germans!" thought the angered diplomat, writhing, as some medieval victim, condemned to undergo torture by rack and fire, might have writhed at the delay of the hideous ordeal.
And then the door opened. The Chief Torturer looked in with the salutation:
"A pleasant day! I am quite at your service now, if you will come up to me.... You know the way, I think?..."
And the great figure vanished, and the heavy footsteps thundered up the drugget-covered stairs.
Did the sorrowful visitor know the way to the torture-chamber? Surely malice must have prompted the query addressed to the unfortunate plenipotentiary of France.
The room he had so loathed had one window looking out on the Rue de Provence, and another at the south side of the house, where stood the pine-tree and the turtle-backed green glass conservatory with the wrought-iron bridge above it. It had a figured gray carpet, a green hearthrug with red edges, dark green stuff curtains, and various oil-paintings and steel engravings hung upon the walls, which were painted coffee-tinted cream. It was furnished with a writing-table, on which were a terrestrial globe, a celestial one, and a tellurion, a large gray marble-topped chiffonier, a sofa covered with chintz, pattern red-and-gray birds-of-paradise on a background with palm-leaves; two cane chairs and a round center-table, upon which lay a platter of wood containing the colored glass marbles with which one plays the game of solitaire.