But I waved them imperiously back, and mounted the stairs alone.

Alone I crossed the ante-chamber, and tapped at the door of the Lord Giovanni's closet.
Instantly it opened, for he had watched my return and been awaiting me.
Hastily he drew me in and closed the door.
He was flushed with excitement and trembling like a leaf.

Yet at the sight that I presented he lost some of his high colour, and recoiled to stare at my armour, battered, dinted, and splashed with browning stains, which loudly proclaimed the fray through which I had been.
He fell to praising my valour, to speaking of the great service I had rendered him, and of the gratitude that he would ever entertain for me, all in terms of a fawning, cloying sweetness that disgusted me more than ever his cruelties had done.

I took off my helmet whilst he spoke, and let it fall with a crash.

The face I revealed to him was livid with fatigue, and blackened with the dust that had caked upon my sweat.