He requires description, not that any pen can describe him, but no one ever saw him who did not immediately wish to try.  He was short, decidedly; but a broad deep chest and long powerful arms had given him many an advantage over taller adversaries in strange barbarous lands.  He was perfectly bald, but that must have been because Nature had not the heart to cover such a wonderful cranium from the admiring gaze of phrenologists.  A sweeping moustache and a long imperial of snowy white sat well on the ruddy tan of his complexion, and gave him an air at once martial and diplomatic.  He was dressed in the most perfect of London clothes, and there were superb diamonds in his shirt, while a priceless sapphire sparkled, in a plain gold setting, on his broad, brown hand.  He is the only man of his time who can wear precious stones without vulgarity.  He moves like a king and has the air of the old school in every gesture.  His dark eyes are brighter than his diamonds, and his look, for all his white beard and seventy years, is as young and fresh as the rose he wears in his coat.

There are some people who turn gray, but who do not grow hoary, whose faces are furrowed but not wrinkled, whose hearts are sore wounded in many places, but are not dead.  There is a youth that bids defiance to age, and there is a kindness which laughs at the world’s rough usage.  These are they who have returned good for evil, not having learned it as a lesson of righteousness, but because they have no evil in them to return upon others.  Whom the gods love die young, and they die young because they never grow old.  The poet, who at the verge of death said this, said it of, and to, this very man.

The Duke went through the introductions, first to the Countess, then to Miss Skeat, then to his sister, and last of all to Claudius, who had been intently watching the newcomer.  Mr. Bellingham paused before Claudius, and looked up in a way peculiarly his own, without raising his head.  He had of course heard in New York of the strange fortune that had befallen Claudius on the death of the well-known Mr. Lindstrand, and now he stood a minute trying to take the measure of the individual before him, not in the least overcome by the physical proportions of the outer man, but struck by the intellectual face and forehead that surmounted such a tower of strength.

“I was in Heidelberg myself—­a student,” said he, his face lighting up with coming reminiscences, “but that was long before you were born, fifty years ago.”

“I fancy it is little changed,” said Claudius.

“I would like to go back to the Badischer Hof.  I remember once—­” but he broke off short and turned to the Countess, and sat down beside her.  He knew all her people in America and her husband’s people abroad.  He immediately began telling her a story of her grandmother, with a verve and graphic spirit that enchanted Margaret, for she liked clever old men.  Besides he is not old.  It is not so long since—­well, it is a long story.  However, in less than one minute the assembled guests were listening to the old-time tale of Margaret’s ancestress, and the waiter paused breathless on the threshold to hear the end, before he announced dinner.