"
With this invitation to mankind in general, and his titled and wealthy
acquaintances in particular, Mr. Jasper Vermont made his preparations
for the night. He kept no valet; men of his type seldom care to have
another in such close relations as must necessarily happen when one man
holds the keys of another. It has been said by some cynic, that "the man
who takes off your coat sees what is passing in the heart beneath it,"
and with this statement Mr. Vermont probably agreed.
"I am a simple-minded, rough-and-ready creature," he often assured his
friends; "a man to worry my tie, and force me to buy a new coat, because
he desires my old one, would drive me mad."
So he undressed himself slowly, reckoning up his gains, smiling at his
mask of a face in the large mirror, and hatching his little plots every
knot he untied, every button he released. At last he got into bed, and
slept as easily and serenely as any simple-minded farmer.
CHAPTER XII
But that night Adrien Leroy could not sleep. Dismissing his valet, he
threw himself into a chair, and began to review the events of the day,
which had affected him more deeply than he would confess to.
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