A square table was in the centre, also free from dust, and a few high-backed leathern chairs, studded with brass nails, were ranged about it.

On the table stood one of the lamps, and the other was placed on a marble column in a corner, that once must have supported a bust, or something of the kind.

Old curtains, moth-eaten and ragged with age, but of a rich material, covered the windows.

Nino glanced at the open trunks on the floor, and saw that they contained a quantity of wearing apparel and the like.

He guessed that his acquaintance had lately arrived.
"I do not often inhabit this den," said the old gentleman, who had divested himself of his furs, and now showed his thin figure arrayed in the extreme of full dress.