Sending the servant from him, he splashed cold water across his face
and neck, brushed and pomaded his strong, raven locks, then set about
to shaving with especial care. Toweling away the remaining lather he
finished dressing, buckled on his sword and walked briskly down the
corridor, roughly pushing aside the butler, who in the semi-darkness
had failed to descry his young master's approaching form, and
deferentially stand aside.
Entering at length the high, majestic dining room, he was oblivious to
the opulent splendor all around him. His one thought, as he seated
himself brusquely, was a mild gratitude that his father, whom he
despised, had not yet risen. For in the aging baron he saw what he
considered an unfair reflection of himself---what he was, and would
become---and he judged most harshly in his father those shortcomings
which he himself possessed.
But on a more human level, and in the open book to which all save
murderers (and he was not yet that) are entitled, the `brooding hunger
of the eyes' which the old woman had described in him as a child, was
in fact a true window into his innermost self---his deep-seated need
for womanly care and affection.
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