I tried to advance some
arguments against this position, but I only succeeded in making him
hostile. "I believe you are a Frenchman yourself," he snarled at last,
giving me an intensely suspicious look; and forthwith broke off
communications with a man of such unsound sympathies.
Hour by hour the blotting-paper sky and the great flat greenish smudge of
the sea had been taking on a darker tone, without any change in their
colouring and texture. Evening was coming on over the North Sea. Black
uninteresting hummocks of land appeared, dotting the duskiness of water
and clouds in the Eastern board: tops of islands fringing the German
shore. While I was looking at their antics amongst the waves--and for
all their solidity they were very elusive things in the failing
light--another passenger came out on deck. This one wore a dark overcoat
and a grey cap. The yellow leather strap of his binocular case crossed
his chest. His elderly red cheeks nourished but a very thin crop of
short white hairs, and the end of his nose was so perfectly round that it
determined the whole character of his physiognomy. Indeed nothing else
in it had the slightest chance to assert itself.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232