His features expressed the
perfect calm and satisfaction of a man who knows that something very
pleasant is about to happen, who has prepared himself for it, and who sits
in the midst of his swept and garnished dwelling in an attitude of pleased
expectancy.
The Count's face was tired, indeed, and there were dark circles under his
sunken grey eyes, brought there by loss of sleep as much as by an habitual
facility for forgetting to eat and drink. But in the eyes themselves there
was a bright, unusual light, as though some brilliant spectacle were
reflected in them out of the immediate future. There was colour, too, in
his lean cheeks, a slight flush like that which comes into certain dark
faces with the anticipation of any keen pleasure. As he sat in his chair,
he looked constantly at the door of the room, as though expecting it to
open at any moment. From time to time, voices and footsteps were heard on
the stairs, far below. When any of these sounds reached him, the Count
rose gravely from his seat, and stood in the middle of the room, slowly
rubbing his hands together, listening again, moving a step to the one side
or the other and back again, in the mechanical manner of a person to whom
a visitor has been announced and who expects to see him appear almost
immediately. But the footsteps echoed and died away and the voices were
still again. The Count stood still a few moments when this happened,
satisfying himself that he had been mistaken, and then, shaking his head
and once more passing his hands round each other, he resumed his seat and
his former attitude.
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