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  perhaps we may be of service. I'm Stewart; this is Dr. Leyden.'

"Our host bowed his acknowledgment. 'I am the Count Asquin,' he said. I had already observed that the schooner was under the French flag. Stewart was staring at the woman under the awning; the Count was scrutinizing Stewart. I murmured acknowledgments and took a mental photograph of the Count. 'A French nobleman,' I thought. 'An invalid who does best at sea; asthma possibly; a student, erudite, polished—a philosopher, and withal a man of heart.' Physically he seemed a wreck, but one saw at a glance that a high vitality had been consumed in his body and conserved in his brain. His eyes were very large, very lustrous, of the reddish-brown which told of sentiment, of mind—the eyes of a poet. There was kind ness in the large nose and the full-lipped mouth was sensual, but neither weak nor selfish; pleasure-loving, but wishful to share with others. He wore a grizzled mustache [ 164 ]