wner of the
house and garden which had interested His Excellency that afternoon. His
Excellency looked a little closer, but saw only a rim of iron-grey hair
above the paper held before Old Roses' face.

Then a voice came from behind the paper: "Your Excellency--"

At the first words the Governor started, and his eyes flashed
searchingly, curiously at the paper that walled the face, and at the
iron-grey hair. The voice rose distinct and clear, with modulated
emphasis. It had a peculiarly penetrating quality. A few in the
room--and particularly Vic--were struck by something in the voice: that
it resembled another voice. She soon found the trail. Her eyes also
fastened on the paper. Then she moved and went to another door. Here she
could see behind the paper at an angle. Her eyes ran from the screened
face to that of the Governor. His Excellency had dropped the lower part
of his face in his hand, and he was listening intently. Vic noticed
that his eyes were painfully grave and concerned. She also noticed other
things.

The address was strange. It had been submitted to the Committee, and
though it struck them as out-of the-wayish, it had been approved.
It seemed different when read as Old Roses was reading it. The words
sounded inclement as they were chiselled out by the speaker's voice.
Dicky Merritt afterwards declared that many phrases were interpolated by
Old Roses at the moment.

The speaker referred intimately and with peculiar knowledge to the
family history of Lord Malice, to certain more or less private matters
which did not concern the public, to the antiquity of the name, and the
high duty devolving upon one who bore the Earldom of Malice. He dwelt
upon the personal character of His Excellency's antecedents, and praised
their honourable services to the country. He referred to the death of
Lord Malice's eldest brother in Burmah, but he did it strangely. Then,
with acute incisiveness, he drew a picture of what a person in so
exalted a position as a Governor should be and should not be. His voice
assuredly at this point had a touch of scorn. The aides-de-camp were
nervous, the Chairman apprehensive, the Committee ill at ease. But the
Governor now was perfectly still, though, as Vic Lindley thought, rather
pinched and old-looking. His fingers toyed with a wine-glass, but his
eyes never wavered from that paper and the grey hair.

Presently the voice of the speaker changed.

"But," said he, "in Lord Malice we ha