In these trying circumstances the Duke of Rianzares displayed an unexpected and wholly admirable calm. He leaned against the mantelpiece, glanced once at the ormolu timepiece with the address of a Paris maker below the winding-holes, and fell again to fingering his unshaven chin. He then turned quickly toward the trembling valet, who regarded him with eyes which seemed to apologise for such unprecedented circumstances.
"There would have been time to shave me even yet," he said, "only that you were fool enough to spill the shaving-water."
Then, as if relinquishing hope, he sighed again and fell listlessly to regarding himself in the mirror. He was a handsome man, even with an unshaven chin that showed over a dressing-gown with yellow flowers on a purple ground. Also the pulses of the tobacco-seller's son of the Ardoz estanco must have been urged by a pretty equal-beating heart, to enable him to take matters so calmly.
The Sergeant muttered to himself once or twice as if making mental note of an important fact which he desired to remember.
"All dandies are not cowards," was what he was saying.
CHAPTER XLI
ROLLO USES A LITTLE PERSUASION
Five, six, seven, eight of the ten slow minutes passed away, and beyond a glance at the clock and a more absorbing interest in the furze on his chin, Señor Muñoz had not moved. The seconds hand upon the clock on the mantelshelf was crawling round its miniature dial for the ninth time with vast apparent deliberation, when a noise was heard from the direction of the Queen's apartments.
There was a rapid gabble of tongues, a scurry of footsteps, the hissing rustle of stiff silken skirts along narrow passages, and a voice which exclaimed more and more shrilly, "The murderers! The cowards! Surely they will never dare! Have they forgotten that I am a Queen?"