A king by night

Mr. Arnold Eversham sat at his broad writing table, his head resting on one long, white hand, the other laid upon the open book beneath the table lamp. There was no other light in the room, but the lemon-coloured walls of his study glowed in the reflected rays that were thrown from the white blotting-pad to the ceiling and back again. The room was simply furnished; a deep blue carpet covered the centre of the parquet floor, and across one wall stretched a dwarf book-case of dark wood; a chintz-covered davenport, a big armchair drawn up by the flower-filled fireplace, two other chairs and the writing table constituted the bulk. A few Medici prints in dark frames hung on the walls--a Corot, a Terbosch, a Van Mere and da Vinci's Mona Lisa. He looked up as somebody knocked softly on the door, and, so looking, his brows met. He was a particularly good-looking man of fifty-five, slightly grey at the temples. His thin, intellectual face showed none of the tell-tale markings that characterize men of his years, and his grave, deep-set eyes held all the sparkle and fire of youth.