He handed me the pen with a flourish: "There you are, Mr. O'Ryan," he said with a misleading heartiness in his barrack-room voice contradicted always by restless and furtive eyes and remarkable royal fingers which were never still—twitching, wandering, searching, unquiet fingers,—irresolute, uncertain, timid, prying fingers not to be depended upon in emergencies, never to be trusted, even in their own pockets.
"Do you expect to remain over night, Monsieur Xenos?" I inquired, glancing at the wet signatures on the ledger, and blotting them.
"Oh, yes," he said. "This inn looks like a damn fine place to spend a few weeks in—doesn't it, Sophy?" appealing to his wife in the loud, familiar, bluff tone characteristic of him, and which seemed to me neither genuine nor carelessly frank, but an assumed manner covering something less confident and good humored.
The Princess of Prussia, so abruptly addressed, turned slowly from her contemplation of the Bec de l'Empereur:
"We shall remain as long as it suits us," she said coolly. "And if our suites are ready——"
"Rooms," corrected the King in jocular protest.
"Suites," repeated his wife sharply.
Ferdinand, gobbling his slopping coffee, wiped his wet beard:
"If there are any suites in your chalet," he said to me, "I'll take one—that is, if it isn't too expensive. I can't afford anything very expensive, and I'll trouble you to remember that."
He got up, continuing to wipe his greasy mouth with the back of a fat, soft hand, and came toward us,—a massive man, and bulkily impressive except that his legs were too short for his heavy body, which discrepancy gave to his gait a curious duck-like waddle.