Bring it.' Woodseer had risen.

Lord Fleetwood motioned him down.

He kept an eye dead--as marble on Corby, who muttered: 'You can't mean that you ask me... ?' But the alternative was forced on Sir Meeson by too strong a power of the implacable eye; there was thunder in it, a continuity of gaze forcefuller than repetitions of the word.

He knew Lord Fleetwood.
Men privileged to attend on him were dogs to the flinty young despot: they were sure to be called upon to expiate the faintest offence to him.
He had hastily to consider, that he was banished beyond appeal, with the whole torture of banishment to an adorer of the Countess Livia, or else the mad behest must be obeyed.

He protested, shrugged, sat fast, and sprang up, remarking, that he went with all the willingness imaginable.
It could not have been the first occasion.
He was affecting the excessively obsequious when he came back bearing his metal soap-case.