Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/77

 were more important for the scene, nature, as always, being more theatrical than any man-contrived theatre. The stage being set, the principal actor made his entrance.

A window running to the gravel path caught the level rays of the setting sun. A man stepped before this, stopping to light a cigarette and then, being there, stayed like an oriental image staring out into the garden.

Harkness looked casually, then looked again, then, fascinated, remained watching. He had never before seen such red hair nor so white a face, nor so large a stone as the green one that shone in a ring on the finger of his raised hand. He was lighting his cigarette—it was after this that he fell into rigid immobility, and the fire of the match caught the ring until, like a great eye, it seemed to open, wink at Harkness, and then regard him with a contemptuous stare.

The man's hair was en brosse, standing straight on end as Loge's used to do in the old pre-war Bayreuth "Ring." It was, like Loge's, a flaming red, short, harsh, instantly arresting. Evening dress. One small black pearl in his shirt. Very small feet in shining shoes.

There had stuck in Harkness's mind a phrase that he had encountered once in George Moore's description of Verlaine in Memories and Opinions—"I shall not forget the glare of the bald prominent