He sees it himself--and
he's very proud of it. He told me so, quite frankly.
But why shouldn't it be a nice effect?"
"Oh, I don't know," Celia replied, idly. "It seemed to me
that he was the kind of piratical buccaneer who oughtn't
to be shaved and polished and taught drawing-room tricks--I
feel that merely in the interest of the fitness of things.
Have you looked into his eyes--I mean when they've got
that lack-lustre expression? You can see a hundred
thousand dead men in them."
"I know the look you mean," said Lady Cressage,
in a low voice.
"Not that I assume he is going to kill anybody,"
pursued Miss Madden, with ostensible indifference, but fixing
a glance of aroused attention upon her companion's face,
"or that he has any criminal intentions whatever. He behaves
very civilly indeed, and apparently his niece and nephew
idolize him. He seems to be the soul of kindness to them.
It may be that I'm altogether wrong about him--only I
know I had the instinct of alarm when I caught that sort
of dull glaze in his eye. I met an African explorer
a year ago, or so, about whose expeditions dark stories
were told, and he had precisely that kind of eye.
Perhaps it was this that put it into my head--but I have
a feeling that this Thorpe is an exceptional sort of man,
who would have the capacity in him for terrible things,
if the necessity arose for them.
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