The chairs looked rickety and uninviting, the sofa was of black horsehair, the carpet was threadbare, and in places in actual holes; but there was a certain something in the air which revealed, in the midst of all this squalor, the presence of a man of fastidious taste.
To begin with, the place was spotlessly clean; the stove, highly polished, gave forth a pleasing warm glow, even whilst the window, slightly open, allowed a modicum of fresh air to enter the room.

In a rough earthenware jug on the table stood a large bunch of Christmas roses, and to the educated nostril the slight scent of perfumes that hovered in the air was doubly pleasing after the fetid air of the narrow streets.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, also my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings.
They greeted Armand with whole-hearted cheeriness.
"Where is Blakeney ?" asked the young man as soon as he had shaken his friends by the hand.
"Present!" came in loud, pleasant accents from the door of an inner room on the right.
And there he stood under the lintel of the door, the man against whom was raised the giant hand of an entire nation--the man for whose head the revolutionary government of France would gladly pay out all the savings of its Treasury--the man whom human bloodhounds were tracking, hot on the scent--for whom the nets of a bitter revenge and relentless reprisals were constantly being spread.
Was he unconscious of it, or merely careless?
His closest friend, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, could not say.

Certain it is that, as he now appeared before Armand, picturesque as ever in perfectly tailored clothes, with priceless lace at throat and wrists, his slender fingers holding an enamelled snuff-box and a handkerchief of delicate cambric, his whole personality that of a dandy rather than a man of action, it seemed impossible to connect him with the foolhardy escapades which had set one nation glowing with enthusiasm and another clamouring for revenge.
But it was the magnetism that emanated from him that could not be denied; the light that now and then, swift as summer lightning, flashed out from the depths of the blue eyes usually veiled by heavy, lazy lids, the sudden tightening of firm lips, the setting of the square jaw, which in a moment--but only for the space of a second--transformed the entire face, and revealed the born leader of men.
Just now there was none of that in the debonnair, easy-going man of the world who advanced to meet his friend.

Armand went quickly up to him, glad to grasp his hand, slightly troubled with remorse, no doubt, at the recollection of his adventure of to-day.

It almost seemed to him that from beneath his half-closed lids Blakeney had shot a quick inquiring glance upon him.