When Valentin arrived he was already dressed in black clothes
and the red rosette--an elegant figure, his dark beard already
streaked with grey. He went straight through his house to his
study, which opened on the grounds behind. The garden door of it
was open, and after he had carefully locked his box in its official
place, he stood for a few seconds at the open door looking out upon
the garden. A sharp moon was fighting with the flying rags and
tatters of a storm, and Valentin regarded it with a wistfulness
unusual in such scientific natures as his. Perhaps such scientific
natures have some psychic prevision of the most tremendous problem
of their lives. From any such occult mood, at least, he quickly
recovered, for he knew he was late, and that his guests had
already begun to arrive. A glance at his drawing-room when he
entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was
not there, at any rate. He saw all the other pillars of the
little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador--a
choleric old man with a russet face like an apple, wearing the
blue ribbon of the Garter. He saw Lady Galloway, slim and
threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior.
He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a pale and pretty girl
with an elfish face and copper-coloured hair. He saw the Duchess
of Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and opulent, and with her her two
daughters, black-eyed and opulent also. He saw Dr. Simon, a
typical French scientist, with glasses, a pointed brown beard, and
a forehead barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the
penalty of superciliousness, since they come through constantly
elevating the eyebrows. He saw Father Brown, of Cobhole, in Essex,
whom he had recently met in England. He saw--perhaps with more
interest than any of these--a tall man in uniform, who had bowed