Page:Malvina of Brittany - Jerome (1916).djvu/216

 he could easily have pawned for a thousand or more.

I could not help staring at him, and once, as they passed, he returned my look.

After dinner, as I was leaning with my back against the gunwale on the starboard side, he came out of the only private cabin that the vessel boasted, and taking up a position opposite to me, with his legs well apart and a big cigar between his thick lips, stood coolly regarding me, as if appraising me.

"Treating yourself to a little holiday on the Continent?" he inquired.

I had not been quite sure before he spoke, but his lisp, though slight, betrayed the Jew. His features were coarse, almost brutal; but the restless eyes were so brilliant, the whole face so suggestive of power and character, that, taking him as a whole, the feeling he inspired was admiration, tempered by fear. His tone was one of kindly contempt—the tone of a man accustomed to find most people his inferiors, and too used to the discovery to be conceited about it.

Behind it was a note of authority that it did not occur to me to dispute.

"Yes," I answered, adding the informa-