are very kind, and very generous, and altogether a very grand person. I am enormously grateful to you.”
“But,” the Frenchman said, with droll surprise, and a slight astonished movement of his shoulders, “I’ave done noz-zing! You ask for du feu—a light—and I geev to you. I am glad eef you like—bot—” again he shrugged his shoulders with a cynical but immensely engaging humour—“eet ees not so ver-ree grand.”
He was a young man, not more than thirty years old, somewhat above middle height, with a thin, nervously active figure, and thin, pointedly Gallic features. It was a pleasant, most engaging face, full of a sharply cynical intelligence; the thin mouth was alive with humour—with the witty and politely cynical disbelief of his race, and his tone, his manner—everything about him—was eloquent with this racial quality of disbelief, a quality that was perfectly courteous, that would raise its pointed eyebrows and say politely, “You s’ink so”—but that accepted without assent, was politely non-committal without agreement.
He was dressed as many young Frenchmen of that period dressed:—a style that served to combine the sinister toughness of the Apache with a rather gaudy and cheap enhancement of the current fashions. His clothes were neat but cheaply made; he wore a felt hat with a wide brim, creased, French fashion, up the sides, an overcoat with padded shoulders, cut in sharply at the waist, his trousers had a short and skimpy look, and barely covered the tops of his shoes. He wore spats, and a rather loud-coloured scarf which he knotted loosely, cravat-fashion, and which thus concealed his collar and his shirt. Finally, when he smoked a cigarette, he drew the smoke in slowly, languorously, knowingly, with lidded eyes, and a cruel and bitter convulsion of his thin lips that gave his sharp face a sinister Apache expression.
Starwick was now crying out in a high drunken tone of passionate assurance:
“But yes! Yes! Yes!—You are a grand person—a swell person—I like you enormously….”
“I am glad,” said the Frenchman politely, with another almost imperceptible movement of the shoulders.
“But yes! You are my friend!” Starwick cried in a high passionate tone. “I like you—you must drink with me.”
“Eef you like—of course!” the Frenchman politely agreed. Turning to the soiled barman who continued to look at them with dark mistrustful
