Four entrances of equal height in heavy Florentine relief gave on this anteroom; from Gunther’s private office, from the library, from the rooms of the private secretaries, and from the outer entrance by which Slade advanced. In the middle of the anteroom Gunther was seated at a small card-table, studiously engrossed in a game of solitaire. He was a medium-seized man who, without an effect of bulk, conveyed an instant impression of solidity, while the head, remarkable in the changed physiognomy of the present day, had the falcon-like, eerie quality, characteristic of the spreading eyebrows and deep-set glance of the American before the Civil War. Slow in movement, slow in speech, he was likewise slow in the deliberation with which his scrutiny left the face he was considering. At the vigorous shock of Slade’s coming, he completed a row of carefully laid cards and lifted his head. "How do you do, Mr. Gunther?" said Slade, whose eye was instantly set on the half-opened doors leading into the library, from which sounds of altercation were issuing. Slade’s arrival seemed to surprise Gunther, who looked at his watch and said, without rising: "You’re ahead of time, Mr. Slade." "Always like to look over the ground when there’s a battle," said Slade, who in fact had intentionally effected a surprise. "Sit down." He motioned to the secretary, who, moving on springs, brought cigars and a light. "I’ll have to keep you waiting, Mr. Slade. There is a conference taking place." Slade glanced from the library to the closed doors of the secretaries’ room. "How many conferences have you?" Gunther turned over a card, studied it and carefully laid it down. It was his manner of settling a question he did not wish to answer. Slade was not offended by the rebuff. Holding most men in antagonism, he had conceived a violent admiration for Gunther and as he was the man above all others whom he wished to impress, he imitated his taciturnity, turning his imagination on the probable groups behind the three double doors, which once had closed on a famous conspiracy in a palace of turbulent medieval Florence.