would soon open for. So altogether unaccountable and disquieting was
this feeling that I rose to my feet and in this moment the door swung
wide and a man appeared.

He was tall and slim and superlatively well clad, his garments of that
quiet elegance which is the mark of exceeding good taste; but it was
his face that drew and held my gaze, a handsome face, paler by
contrast with the raven blackness of flowing, curled hair, a
delicate-nostrilled, aquiline nose, a thin-lipped mouth and smooth jut
of pointed chin. All this I saw as he stood as if awaiting some one,
half-turned upon the steps, a magnificent and shapely figure, tapping
impatiently at glittering, be-tasselled boot with slender,
gold-mounted cane. And then--Diana appeared and paused in the doorway
to stare up at him while he smiled down on her, and I saw his smiling
lips move in soft speech as, with a hateful and assured deliberation,
his white fingers closed upon her round, sunburned arm and he gestured
gracefully towards the carriage with his cane.

"Ah, damn you--stand off!" I cried, and clenching my fists I sprang
forward, raging. As I came he swung about to meet me, the slender cane
quivering in his grip, and thus for a moment we faced each other. And
now I saw he was older than I had thought and, meeting the intensity
of these smouldering eyes, beholding quivering nostrils and relentless
mouth and chin, my flesh crept with a fierce and unaccountable
loathing of the man and, unheeding the threat of the cane, I leapt on
him like a mad creature. I felt the sharp pain of a blow as the cane
snapped asunder on my body and I was upon him, pounding and smiting
with murder in my heart. Then the long white hand seized my collar and
whirled me aside with such incredible strength that I fell and lay for
a moment half-stunned as, without a glance towards me, he opened the