It indeed still lacked a few minutes of the appointed
hour when they thus met and went in together. They were
fortunate enough to find a small table out on the balcony,
sufficiently removed from any other to give privacy to
their conversation.
By tacit agreement, the General ordered the luncheon,
speaking French to the waiter throughout. Divested of his
imposing great-coat, he was seen to be a gentleman of meagre
flesh as well as of small stature. He had the Roman nose,
narrow forehead, bushing brows, and sharply-cut mouth and chin
of a soldier grown old in the contemplation of portraits
of the Duke of Wellington. His face and neck were of a
dull reddish tint, which seemed at first sight uniformly
distributed: one saw afterward that it approached pallor
at the veined temples, and ripened into purple in minute
patches on the cheeks and the tip of the pointed nose.
Against this flushed skin, the closely-cropped hair
and small, neatly-waxed moustache were very white indeed.
It was a thin, lined, care-worn face, withal, which in repose,
and particularly in profile, produced an effect of dignified
and philosophical melancholy. The General's over-prominent
light blue eyes upon occasion marred this effect, however,
by glances of a bold, harsh character, which seemed
to disclose unpleasant depths below the correct surface.
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