Day's New Year's Dance, but not so early that Sir Francis Forcus
had not received a visitor before him. A visitor who had upset the
equanimity of that always outwardly unruffled, and carefully self-contained
person.
"You are up with the worm, this morning, Reggie," he said.
He was not at all a typical brewer in appearance, his tall, imposing figure
being clothed in no superfluous flesh, his face, with its peculiarly set
expression, being pale and handsome. His black hair, worn rather long,
after the fashion of the day, was brushed smoothly from his temples; he was
shaved but for the close-growing whiskers, which reached half-way down his
cheeks.
"To what are we indebted for the honour of so early a call?" he inquired
with a twist of his in-drawn lips.
"You were off before I was down this morning," the young man said. "I just
looked in to tell you I was going out. That's all."
"You look in rather frequently on the same errand, I believe. Would it be
indiscreet on my part to ask where you are going?"
"Not in the least," Reggie declared easily. He lifted for his brother's
inspection a pair of skates which he had held dangling at his side.
"They've flooded the meadows at Tooley. The ice ought to be in first-rate
order, this morning.
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