He looked intently at the white countenance. Sir Charles might not be a very clever physician, as his less opulent colleagues were always very fond of affirming, but he had special gifts of his own.
“A fine, intellectual head, a distinguished face. I should not be surprised if he had once been a man of some distinction. Do you know anything of his antecedents?”
Nello shook his head. “Next to nothing. Our acquaintance has been too recent for much confidence, but he has been very kind to myself and sister. I gather that he was at one time a very celebrated pianist.”
“His name, the Princess told me over the ’phone, was Péron. With the recollection of all the great artists for, say, fifty years, I cannot recall that name. We have here, my dear sir, a mystery, and probably a tragedy also. I will keep you no longer. A thousand regrets that my visit has been so useless.”
Nello saw the plump, urbane man to the door, and then returned to the little bedroom where poor old Papa Péron, of the kind heart and the caustic tongue, lay in the last sleep of all.
CHAPTER V
His heart heavy with grief at the loss of his kind old friend, who had been to him and his sister a second father, Nello Corsini faced again a fastidious and critical audience in the saloons of the Russian Embassy.
Last night he had played to the élite of the fashionable world, made up of its many elements. Royalty, as represented by the sovereign and her children, the flower of the aristocracy, subordinate members of the financial and commercial world, distinguished persons of every profession.