traordinary eyes, which never had one but always the suggestion of a
hundred different expressions.

'I love my room,' he said, 'it is the only place I have in the world.
Don't you like it?'

'It is very quiet,' said Clara.

Sir Henry rang a bell and ordered lunch to be brought up, vol-au-vents,
cold chicken, Creme Caramel, champagne.

'You're not old enough to understand food,' he said. 'That comes with
the beginning of wisdom.'

'But I understand food very well,' protested Clara, 'my grandfather
knew all there was to know about it.'

'Ah! You are used to old men, eh? Boys don't exist for you, eh?'

With extraordinary gusto he produced a photograph album, and showed her
portraits of himself at various ages, slim and romantic at twenty, at
forty impressively Byronic, at fifty monumentally successful--and
'present day.' He showed her portraits of his mother and father, his
wife, his children, Miss Teresa Chesney in her pieces, his various
leading ladies, his sisters who had both married noble lords, and of a
large number of actors and actresses who had passed through his
company. Of them he talked with real knowledge and enthusiasm. He
adored acting for its own sake, and as he talked brought all these
performers vividly before Clara's eyes so that she must accept the
validity of his criticism: he knew, or seemed to know, exactly what
each could do or could not do, though it was difficult to understand
how he could ever have found time to see them all. Whether or not he
had done so, he had exactly weighed up the value of their theatrical
personalities, and it was in those and those alone that he was
interested. As human beings, he was indifferent to them, though he
spoke of them all with the exaggerated affection common to the
theatre--'dear old Arthur' ... 'adorable Lily' ... 'delicious Irene.
Ah! she's a good woman.' He talked rhapsodically, and his talk rather
reminded Clara of Liszt's music, until lunch came, and then his greedy
pleasure in the food made her think of certain gluttonous musicians she
had known in Germany. He ate quickly, and his eyes beamed satisfaction
at her, so young, so fresh, so altogether unusual and challenging....
She would neither eat nor drink, so absorbed was she in this strange
man who so overwhelmingly imposed his personality upon her until she
felt that she was merely part of the furniture of the room.

When he had done eating and drinking, he lit a cigar and lay back i