mirror of what was passing beyond the curtain.

The masses of level light from the columns on the left seemed to envelope
the stranger, who came toward us from the entrance, as if he had divined
the presence of Honoria in the alcove.

He was about the middle height, Napoleonic in form and bearing, with
features of marble paleness, firm, and sharply defined. His hair and
magnificent Asiatic beard were jetty black, curling, and naturally
disposed. Under his dark and solid brows gleamed large eyes of abysmal
blackness and intensity.

"Is it Lord N----?" whispered Lethal, moved from his habitual coldness by
the astonishment which he read in my face.

"Senator D----, perhaps," suggested Denslow, whose ideas, like his person,
aspired to the senatorial.

"Dumas," hinted Adonais, an admirer of French literature. "I heard he was
expected."

"No," I answered, "but certainly in appearance the most noticeable man
living. Let us go out and be introduced."

"Perhaps," said Lethal, "it is the d----."

All rose instantly at the idea, and we went forward, urged by irresistible
curiosity.

As we drew near the stranger, who was conversing with Honoria and Dalton,
a shudder went through me. It was a thrill of the universal Boswell; I
seemed to feel the presence of "the most aristocratic man of the age."

Honoria introduced me. "My Lord Duke, allow me to present my friend, Mr.
De Vere; Mr. De Vere, the Duke of Rosecouleur."

Was I, then, face to face with, nay, touching the hand of a highness,--and
that highness the monarch of the _ton_? And is this a ducal hand, white as
the albescent down of the eider-duck, which presses mine with a tender
touch, so haughty and so delicately graduated to my standing as "friend"
of the exquisite Honoria? It was too much; I could have wept; my senses
rather failed.

Dalton fell short of himself; for, though his head stooped to none, unless
conventionally, the sudden and unaccountable presence of the Duke of
Rosecouleur annoyed and perplexed him. His own sovereignty was threatened.

Lethal stiffened himself to the ordeal of an introduction; the affair
seemed to exasperate him. Denslow alone, of the men, was in his element.
Pompous and soft, he "cottoned" to the grandeur with the instinct of a
born satellite, and his eyes grew brighter, his body more shining and
rotund, his back more concave. His _bon-vivant_ tones, jolly and
conventional, sounded a pure barytone to the clear soprano of Honori