He was a tall man of some fifty years of age, but so powerful of frame and so scrupulous in dress that he might have conveyed an impression of more youth.

His face, though handsome in a high-bred way, was puffed and of an unhealthy yellow.

But the eyes were as keen as the mouth was voluptuous, and in his carefully dressed black hair there were few strands of grey.
He came slowly forward, and his lowering glance wandered from his daughter to his secretary in inquiry.

At last-- "Well ?" he demanded.

"What is the matter ?" "It is nothing, Monsieur," his daughter answered him.