THIRD NARRATIVE
4. CHAPTER IV
(continued)
The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most
remarkable-looking man that I had ever seen. Judging him
by his figure and his movements, he was still young.
Judging him by his face, and comparing him with Betteredge,
he looked the elder of the two. His complexion was of a
gipsy darkness; his fleshless cheeks had fallen into deep hollows,
over which the bone projected like a pent-house. His nose
presented the fine shape and modelling so often found among
the ancient people of the East, so seldom visible among the newer
races of the West. His forehead rose high and straight
from the brow. His marks and wrinkles were innumerable.
From this strange face, eyes, stranger still, of the softest brown--
eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk in their orbits--
looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took your attention
captive at their will. Add to this a quantity of thick
closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of Nature, had lost
its colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner.
Over the top of his head it was still of the deep black
which was its natural colour. Round the sides of his head--
without the slightest gradation of grey to break the force
of the extraordinary contrast--it had turned completely white.
The line between the two colours preserved no sort of regularity.
At one place, the white hair ran up into the black;
at another, the black hair ran down into the white.
I looked at the man with a curiosity which, I am ashamed to say,
I found it quite impossible to control. His soft brown eyes
looked back at me gently; and he met my involuntary rudeness
in staring at him, with an apology which I was conscious that I had
not deserved.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I had no idea that Mr. Betteredge
was engaged." He took a slip of paper from his pocket,
and handed it to Betteredge. "The list for next week," he said.
His eyes just rested on me again--and he left the room as quietly
as he had entered it.
"Who is that?" I asked.
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