"Never mind breakfast. I am going to lie down for an hour or two now: I have had some business to think over. Let me have some breakfast about eleven—when I ring."
"Very well, sir."
That was his phrase—he had had some business to think over. But it seemed to him, as he went into the adjacent room, that that night he had passed through worse than the bitterness of death.
CHAPTER LV.
CONGRATULATIONS.
The Secretary Granaglia, the business of the Council being over, carried the news to Von Zoesch. It was almost dark when he made his way up the steep little terraces in the garden of the villa at Posilipo. He found the tall general seated at the entrance to the grotto-like retreat, smoking a cigar in the dusk.
"You are late, Granaglia," he said.
"I had some difficulty in coming here," said the little man with the sallow face and the tired eyes. "The police are busy, or pretending to be. The Commendatore tells me that Zaccatelli has been stirring them up."