The table bore, in addition, a
green morocco case of dominoes; a mahogany box that, in a recess,
mysteriously maintained a visible cigarette; a study of Beethoven, in
French; an outspread volume by Anatole France, _Jacques Tournebroche_,
in a handsome paper cover; a set of copper ash trays; and a dull red
figurine, holding within its few inches the deathless spirit of a heroic
age. An angle of the wall before him was filled by a white panelled
fireplace, the mantel close against the ceiling; and on the other side
of a doorway, through which he could see Rudolph noiselessly preparing
the dinner table, was a swan-like sofa, in olive wood and pale yellow
satin, from the Venice of the _ottocento_. At his right, beyond a
window, mounted a tall, austere secretary in waxed walnut; and behind
him, under the white chair rail, bookcases extended across the width of
the room. Gustavus Hesselius' portrait of the first Howat Penny hung on
a yellow painted wall, his gilt-braided major's facings still vivid, his
dark, perceptible scorn undimmed. There were, too, framed in oak, a
large photograph of Tamagno, as Othello, with a scrawled, cordial
message; another of a graceful woman in the Page's costume of _Les
Huguenots_, signed "Sempre .
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