Chapter Four
Baron Anserval was sitting at his ease in a particularly fine wing-back chair, his attention wholly occupied by the delicate antique book he was cradling upon a pillow on his lap. He was surrounded by antiques, in fact; the chair in which he reclined was a velvet-upholstered fancy, more than two hundred years old and displaying an excessively fine claret colour. A matching chair and divan stood nearby, standing at elegant angles to a pleasingly elderly carpet of lively hues. The walls of his study were lined with expensive bookcases, each shelf well-filled with agreeably faded and crumbling tomes, and his cabinets bristled with rare and fine ornaments. It gave him the greatest satisfaction to sit and admire his collection, and also furnished him with a pleasing sense of supe
