CHAPTER XIX

A PRINCE OF THE WEST A man sat writing before a rosewood desk in a great dimly-lit chamber. A single green-shaded lamp burned at his left elbow, throwing a stream of light upon the papers before him, and upon his face. The rest of the room, high and finely proportioned, was wrapped in shadows, not so dense but that here and there the pale marble face of some exquisite piece of statuary shone dimly through the gloom, wearing in the dim half-light a strangely human expression. The hard polished wood floor, inlaid wit…