She returned to her own room when she could bear the over-decoration of the breakfast-room no longer, and waited restlessly, counting the apparently endless moments as they passed. And then, at last, she heard a quick step in the hall, a light tap upon her door, and Ahbel stepped inside, followed by a man, before Carlita had time to bid them enter.
It was such a curious sensation that oppressed her as she glanced from her maid to her maid's uncle—a breathless excitement, subdued by a sort of repulsion which was indefinable in her present mood.
Ahbel's cheeks were crimson, her eyes sparkling, under the excitement and an unusually brisk walk; but it was toward the man that Carlita's most inquiring glances were bent.
He was rather small of stature—small and wiry—with a smoothly shaved face, through which the incipient black beard showed, making the skin look blue. The hair was thick and very black, contrasting oddly with the half-sunken cheeks. But it was the eyes that gave him his extraordinary appearance. They were deep set and small, gray as to color, but so piercing, so penetrating, as to make a comparatively innocent man tremble as he looked into them.
He bowed profoundly as Ahbel introduced him to her mistress.
"Miss de Barryos, this is my uncle, Edmond Stolliker."
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Stolliker?" asked Carlita, pointing toward a chair, and speaking to her maid's uncle as if he were "to the manner born"—well, perhaps, because a something about him, unnamed but still apparent, compelled it.
He bowed again and took the chair she indicated quietly and without any apparent awkwardness.
She seated herself opposite him, a table between them, and nervously handled some of the ivory and silver toilet articles that littered it.