On
the other hand, they puzzled her. They were neither traders nor sailors
of any type she had known. Nor did they talk like gentlemen, despite the
fact that there was nothing offensive in their bearing and that the
veneer of ordinary social nicety was theirs. Undoubtedly, they were men
of affairs--business men of a sort; but what affairs should they have in
the Solomons, and what business on Berande? The elder one, Morgan, was a
huge man, bronzed and moustached, with a deep bass voice and an almost
guttural speech, and the other, Raff, was slight and effeminate, with
nervous hands and watery, washed-out gray eyes, who spoke with a faint
indefinable accent that was hauntingly reminiscent of the Cockney, and
that was yet not Cockney of any brand she had ever encountered. Whatever
they were, they were self-made men, she concluded; and she felt the
impulse to shudder at thought of falling into their hands in a business
way. There, they would be merciless.
She watched Sheldon closely when he arrived, and divined that he was not
particularly delighted to see them. But see them he must, and so
pressing was the need that, after a little perfunctory general
conversation, he led the two men into the stuffy office. Later in the
afternoon, she asked Lalaperu where they had gone.
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