Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/217

 might call handsome, of a pictorial, exuberant style of beauty, all attitude, profile, and impudence: a man whom I could see in fancy parade on the grand stand at a race-meeting, or swagger in Piccadilly, staring down the women, and stared at himself with admiration by the coal-porters. Of his frame of mind at that moment his face offered a lively if an unconscious picture. He was lividly pale, and his lip was caught up in a smile that could almost be called a snarl, of a sheer, arid malignity that appalled me and yet put me on my mettle for the encounter. He looked me up and down, then bowed and took off his hat to me.

"My cousin, I presume?" he said.

"I understand I have that honour," I replied.

"The honour is mine," said he, and his voice shook as he said it.

"I should make you welcome, I believe," said I.

"Why?" he inquired. "This poor house has been my home for longer than I care to claim. That you should already take upon yourself the duties of host here is to be at unnecessary pains. Believe me, that part would be more becomingly mine. And, by the way, I must not fail to offer you my little compliment. It is a gratifying surprise to meet you in the dress of a gentleman, and to see"—with a circular look upon the scattered bills—"that your necessities have already been so liberally relieved."

I bowed with a smile that was perhaps no less hateful than his own.

"There are so many necessities in this world," said I, "Charity has to choose. One gets relieved, and some other, no less indigent, perhaps indebted, must go wanting."

"Malice is an engaging trait," said he.

"And envy, I think?" was my reply.