In vain did I attune myself to his gloom. He
seemed not to hear me or even to see me. I felt that his behavior made
me ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The gangway between the
two rows of tables at the Vingtieme was hardly more than two
feet wide (Rose and Berthe, in their ministrations, had always to edge
past each other, quarreling in whispers as they did so), and any one at the
table abreast of yours was virtually at yours. I thought our neighbor was
amused at my failure to interest Soames, and so, as I could not explain
to him that my insistence was merely charitable, I became silent.
Without turning my head, I had him well within my range of vision.
I hoped I looked less vulgar than he in contrast with Soames.
I was sure he was not an Englishman, but what WAS his nationality?
Though his jet-black hair was en brosse, I did not think he was French.
To Berthe, who waited on him, he spoke French fluently, but with a hardly
native idiom and accent. I gathered that this was his first visit to the
Vingtieme; but Berthe was offhand in her manner to him: he had not made a
good impression. His eyes were handsome, but, like the Vingtieme's tables,
too narrow and set too close together. His nose was predatory, and the points
of his mustache, waxed up behind his nostrils, gave a fixity to his smile.
Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of discomfort in his presence
was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat which tightly, and so
unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest.
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