A door had opened from lower down the deck, and a curious little procession was coming towards them. A man, burly and broad-shouldered, who had the air of a professional bully, walked by himself ahead. Two others of similar build walked a few steps behind. And between them a thin, insignificant figure, wrapped in an immense fur coat and using a strong walking-stick, came slowly along the deck. It was like a procession of prison warders guarding a murderer, or perhaps a nerve-wrecked royal personage moving towards the end of his days in the midst of enemies. With halting steps the little old man came shambling along. He looked neither to the left nor to the right. His eyes were fixed and yet unseeing, his features were pale and bony. There was no gleam of life, not even in his stone-cold eyes. Like some machine-made man of a new and physically degenerate age, he took his exercise under the eye of his doctor--a strange and miserable-looking object. "There goes Sirdeller," Sogrange whispered. "Look at him--the man whose might is greater than any emperor's. There is no haven in the universe to which he does not hold the key. Look at him--master of the world!" Peter shivered. There was something depressing in the sight of that mournful procession. "He neither smokes nor drinks," Sogrange continued. "Women, as a sex, do not exist for him. His religion is a doubting Calvinism. He has a doctor and a clergyman always by his side to inject life and hope if they can. Look at him well, my friend. He represents a great moral lesson." "Thanks!" Peter replied. "I am going to take the taste of him out of my mouth with a whisky and soda. Afterwards, I'm for the Duchesse." But the Duchesse, apparently, was not for Peter. He found her in the music-room, with several of the little Marconi missives spread out before her, and she cut him dead. Peter, however, was a brave man and skilled at the game of bluff. So he stopped by her side and, without any preamble, addressed her. "Duchesse," he said, "you are a woman of perception. Which do you believe, then, in your heart, to be the more trustworthy--the Count von Hern or I?" She simply stared at him. He continued promptly: "You have received your warning, I see." "From whom?" "From the Count von Hern. Why believe what he says? He may be a friend of yours--he may be a dear friend--but in your heart you know that he is both unscrupulous and selfish. Why accept his word and distrust me? I, at least, am honest." She raised her eyebrows. "Honest?" she repeated. "Whose word have I for that save your own? And what concern is it of mine if you possess every one of the _bourgeois_ qualities in the world? You are presuming, sir." "My friend Sogrange will tell you that I am to be trusted," Peter persisted. "I see no reason why I should trouble myself about your personal characteristics," she replied coldly. "They do not interest me."