The gentleman had by now become so affable, so willing to talk that Stephen had no hesitation in asking him, “And what do you keep in such a pretty little box, sir? Snuff?”

“Oh, no! It is a great treasure of mine that I wish Lady Pole to wear at my ball tonight!” He opened the box and shewed Stephen a small, white finger.

At first this struck Stephen as a little unusual, but his surprize faded in a moment and if any one had questioned him about it just then, he would have replied that gentlemen often carried fingers about with them in little boxes and that this was just one of many examples he had seen.

“Has it been in your family long, sir?” he asked, politely.

“No, not long.”

The gentleman snapped shut the box and put it in his pocket.

Together, he and Stephen admired his reflection in the mirror. Stephen could not help but notice how they perfectly complemented each other: gleaming black skin next to opalescent white skin, each a perfect example of a particular type of masculine beauty. Exactly the same thought seemed to strike the gentleman.

“How handsome we are!” he said in a wondering tone. “But I see now that I have made a horrible blunder! I took you for a servant in this house! But that is quite impossible! Your dignity and handsomeness proclaim you to be of noble, perhaps kingly birth! You are a visitor here, I suppose, as I am. I must beg your pardon for imposing upon you and thank you for the great service you have done me in making me ready to meet the beautiful Lady Pole.”

Stephen smiled. “No, sir. I am a servant. I am Sir Walter’s servant.”

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair raised his eye-brow in astonishment. “A man as talented and handsome as yourself ought not be a servant!” he said in a shocked tone. “He ought to be the ruler of a vast estate! What is beauty for, I should like to know, if not to stand as a visible sign of one’s superiority to everyone else? But I see how it is! Your enemies have conspired together to deprive you of all your possessions and to cast you down among the ignorant and lowly!”

“No, sir. You are mistaken. I have always been a servant.”

“Well, I do not understand it,” declared the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, with a puzzled shake of his head. “There is some mystery here and I shall certainly look into it just as soon as I am at liberty. But, in the meantime, as a reward for dressing my hair so well and all the other services you have done me, you shall attend my ball tonight.”

This was such a very extraordinary proposal that for a moment Stephen did not know quite what to say. “Either he is mad,” he thought, “or else he is some sort of radical politician who wishes to destroy all distinctions of rank.”