up, and in the blue depths--so Richard thought--shone pleasure at the
news. He could not be certain, for when the blue eyes met the gray ones,
they fell to a furtive consideration of the floor.

"You are to take a house in Washington," said Richard to Mr. Gwynn an
hour later.

Mr. Gwynn bowed.

You who read will now come back to that snow-filled day in November.
Richard relocked his dear boot-heel in the casket; eleven and Matzai had
entered the room together. Matzai laid out Richard's clothes, down to
pin and puff tie. Richard shook off his bathrobe skin and shone forth in
a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of those cotton trousers, cut short
above the knee, which dramatic usage ascribes to fishermen and
buccaneers.

As Richard stood erect, shoulders wide as a viking's, chest arched like
the deck of a whale-back, he might have been a model for the Farnese
Hercules, if that demigod were slimmed down by training and ten years
off his age. He of Farnese should be about forty, if one may go by
looks, while Richard was but thirty. Also, Richard's arms, muscled to
the wrists and as long as a Pict's, would have been out of drawing from
standpoints of ancient art. One must rescue Richard's head; it was not
that nubbin of a head which goes with the Farnese one. Moreover, it
showed wisest balance from base to brow; with the face free of beard and
mustache, while the yellow hair owned no taint of curl--altogether an
American head on Farnese shoulders refined.

Richard made no speed with his dressing. What with refusing several