Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/184

  in her abundant hair, which no doubt she would have very much enjoyed.

"She offered us her hand after the manner of 'the Slope,' and as Stewart took it in his I saw the blood surge up beneath his yellow, tropic tan; his pale eyes shone like those of a gull, and one could see the deep chest swell suddenly as he caught his breath. Consider the nature of the man, Doctor—more animal than a well-bred dog, who, after all, has many elevated traits, whereas Stewart's were mostly low—and the fact that he had not seen a fair woman for months.

"The deep blue eyes of the Countess were fixed upon Stewart with a sort of startled wonder; no doubt the contrasts of the man's crushing masculinity with the colorless shell of her husband's sex may have struck her as a positive shock. There was almost a physical weight in the impulse which he projected toward her. One saw that she took it with a little shudder—as an hereditary drunkard might gulp his first glass of spirits. [ 168 ]