During the next half-hour, Hamel was introduced to luxuries to which, in a general way, he was entirely unaccustomed.

One man-servant was busy preparing his bath in a room leading out of his sleeping apartment, while another brought him a choice of evening clothes and superintended his disrobing.

Hamel, always observant, studied his surroundings with keen interest.

He found himself in a queerly mixed atmosphere of luxurious modernity and stately antiquity.

His four-poster, the huge couch at the foot of his bed, and all the furniture about the room, was of the Queen Anne period.