Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III It was a little aften ten next morning, and Theodore Beck- with was sitting in his bedroom at the Castello with a litter of letters round him, glancing now at one and putting it aside, or handing another over to Mr. Lucas, his secretary, who sat by him, with a few words of explanation as to the answer which it required. He wore a very brightly-coloured silk dressing-gown, reaching to his feet, and buttoned with large onyx buttons down the front, while on his feet apparently his only other clothing he wore red morocco slippers. Between these and his dressing-gown there was a slight hiatus, and a very white slim ankle showed itself. He had already shaved, and his chin showed blue-black against the collar of his dressing-gown; his hair was very carefully brushed, and on the fourth finger of his left hand were two rings, one with an emerald in it, the other with two opals. His tray of early breakfast coffee and a couple of rolls stood on a small silver-topped table by him, and as he read or dictated he sometimes drank a sip from the Sevres coffee- cup, or with his even white teeth crunched a piece of roll. Coffee-pot and milk-pot were of wonderfully fine Queen Anne silver, and an embroidered napkin covered his red- lacquer tray. A Louis Seize bedstead, which had arrived the day before in a huge packing-case, showed where he had slept; but the room was otherwise, except for three or four straight-backed chairs, and the one easy-chair in which he sat, almost completely empty. The door into his dressing-room, however, was open, and through that could be seen a toilet-table covered with silver, a bath still steaming, and exhaling the clean, aromatic smell of cedar, and a patient, immobile valet, waiting for the moment when his master might choose to go on with his dressing...