31The butler appeared with my hat. I put it on and said: ‘What do you think of him?’
‘He’s not as weak as he looks, sir.’
‘If he was, he’d be ready for burial. What did this Regan fellow have that bored into him so?’
The butler looked at me levelly and yet with a queer lack of expression. ‘Youth, sir,’ he said. ‘And the soldier’s eye.’
‘Like yours,’ I said.
‘If I may say so, sir, not unlike yours.’
‘Thanks. How are the ladies this morning?’
He shrugged politely.
‘Just what I thought,’ I said, and he opened the door for me.
I stood outside on the step and looked down the vistas of grassed terraces and trimmed trees and flowerbeds to the tall metal railing at the bottom of the gardens. I saw Carmen about half-way down, sitting on a stone bench, with her head between her hands, looki
