Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/77

 not; but what I have to offer, I give. And at least we are here, together, ready for an effort."

"And what is more, Eloise," sharply exclaimed Baron Von Hertz, "this is no time for any woman folly of tongue. You'd better be thankful that Karl has got some one back of him that, if I'm not badly mistaken, is going to do things. Hoity-toity! Don't start in to make faces at me! I'm old enough to know a man when I see one. You had better go upstairs to bed. So had all of us. Come on. No foolishness. I'll show you the way. This man—what is that his name is—Kent, has plenty to do in the morning, and I will not let him be bothered by anybody. You just stop any desire to interfere and leave him alone. I'll have my way here. This is my place."

Rebelliously she obeyed, and Kent watched her as she followed the crabbed old man up the grand staircase, while the latter's voice came back through the deserted halls, querulous, and admonitory, until it died away. A half hour later he, too, stood alone in a vast room surveying the bed in which he was to sleep, and as he pulled off his shoes and threw them outside the door for much needed attention, he grinned as if secretly pleased with his adventure. His lights were out within fifteen minutes, but the watchman, wondering, noted that farther along in a room assigned to the young man to whom so much deference was shown, that [73]