He had even regarded them with a confidence, equal if not superior to
their own. But now he faced a calm, impassive group of men who seemed
to strip him down to the flesh with a cool, piercing interest, and
who were in no sense impressed by what they saw.
Despite his nervousness he responded to the life long habit of
calculation. He counted the units in the group in a single, rapid
glance, and found that there were eleven. Eleven lords of the realm!
Eleven stern, dignified, unsmiling strangers to the arrogance of
William W. Blithers! Something told him at once that he could not
spend an informal half-hour with them. Grim, striking, serious
visages, all of them! The last hope for his well-fed American humour
flickered and died. He knew that it would never do to regale them in
an informal off-hand way--as he had planned--with examples of native
wit.
Reverting to the precise moment of his entrance to the Castle, we
find Mr. Blithers saying to himself that there wasn't the slightest
use in even hoping that he might be invited to transfer his lodgings
from the Regengetz to the Royal bed-chambers.
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