hit that he couldn't imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of
indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could
not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was
conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and
playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the
more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights
so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively
flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth
of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features,
the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely
uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him
without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had
taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in
the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking
silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin,
furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as
you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense
undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite's
bony head fitted with a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean
body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He
was a strong man, susceptible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt.
And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just
as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently
attractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in
shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses.
His mind meantime, preoccupied with respectability, quailed before
Schomberg's tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations;
and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of
marrying my mother's (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann's
niece. Sooner, I protested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did