Charred Wood

In an upstairs room of a Washington Ministry three men sat in conference. One, a stout, bearded man, was seated behind a flat-top desk on which he constantly thrummed with nervous fingers; the others sat facing him. The man at the desk was the Minister of a Kingdom, and looked it. His eyes were half closed, as if in languid indifference, effectually veiling their keenness. The expression of his mouth was lost in the dark moustache, and in the beard combed from the center. The visible part of his face would have made a gambler's fortune; and, save for its warm color, it might have been carved out of ice. Without ever a hint of harshness or loudness, his voice was one to command attention; though it came out soft and velvety, it was with the half assurance that it could ring like steel if the occasion arose. The occasion never arose. The hands, whose fingers thrummed on the glass-topped desk, were soft, warm-looking, and always moist, with a dampness that on contact made you feel vaguely that you had touched oil--and you had.

Both of the other men were beardless, but one had the ghost of a moustache on his upper lip. He was dapper, clean and deferential. The other was short and somewhat ungainly in build, and his face showed evidence of the recent shaving off of a heavy beard. He had no graces, and evidently no thoughts but of service--service of any kind, so long as he recognized the authority demanding it. His clothes did not suit him; they were rich enough, but they were not his kind. A soldier of the ranks, a sailor before the mast, a laborer on Sunday, could have exchanged clothes with this man and profited in values, while the other would certainly have profited in looks.

"You did not see the other, then, Ivan?" the fat man asked, interrupting the story of his awkward guest.

"I did not, Excellency. He came at me too quickly, and I had no idea there was anyone there besides myself and--and the person who--"

"Yes, yes. The person who is now without a name. Go on."

"I was in the shrubs, near a great large tree that seemed to form part of a wall, when the two, the person and a lady, came back together. She--"

"Did they act as if they knew one another?"

The man smiled. "Excellency, they acted as if they knew one another quite well. They embraced."

"That you did not see, Ivan?"

"No, Excellency, of course, I did not see that."

"Proceed, Ivan."

"After they--parted, Excellency, the lady opened the tree and went into it."