y surprise. His wonderful white hair, which made him noticeable
without ever making him venerable, was tumbled on his head; he looked
from his pillow with the immobility and inexpressiveness of a wax
figure.

To his valet's murmured "good morning," he frowned slightly, as if in
some preoccupation of his thoughts.

"What sort of day is it?" he asked, without replying to the greeting.

"It is fine, M'sieur le Prince," answered the valet; "a beautiful
day."

"H'm!" The Prince de Monpavon lifted himself on one silk-sleeved
elbow to see for himself. The window was on the west side of the
building, so that from the bed one looked as through a tunnel of
shadow to a sunlight that hung aloof and distant. He surveyed it for
a space of minutes with a face of discontent, then fell back on his
pillows.

"Thought it was raining," he remarked. "Something feels wrong about
it. What time is it?"

"It is twenty minutes past eleven, M'sieur le Prince," replied the
servant. "I will fetch M'sieur le Prince's letters. And M. Dupontel
has telephoned."

"Eh?" The Prince's hard eyes came round to him swiftly, but not soon
enough to see that movement of his right hand that gave him the
appearance of deftly pocketing some small object concealed in the
palm of it. "What does he say?"

"He will be here at noon, and hopes that M'sieur le Prince will go to
take lunch with him."

The Prince nodded slowly, and the valet, treading always as if noise
were a sacrilege, passed out of the room to fetch the letters. The
Prince lifted his head to pack the pillow under it more conveniently,
and waited in an appearance of deep thought. Under the bedclothes the
contour of his body showed long, and slender, and his face, upturned
to the canopy of the bed, was one upon which the years of his age had
found slight foothold. It had the smooth pallor of a man whose chief
activities are indoors: it was wary, nervous, and faintly sinister,
with strong, dark eyebrows standing in picturesque contrast to the
white hair. The figure he was accustomed to present was that of a man
established in life as in a stronghold.

He was neither youthful nor elderly, but mature. Without fortune or
rich connections, he had contrived during nearly thirty years to live
as a man of wealth; he had seen the game ecarte go out and bridge
come in; and had so devised the effect he made that he was still more
eminent as a personality than as a gambler. Though he played in many
plac