s and also I felt
flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in
his usual dispassionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but
not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with
Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I
saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural
forces are not quarrelsome. You can't quarrel with the wind that
inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street
full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder,
falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law
by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but
of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide
interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed
without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and
more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless
voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half
an hour.

It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never
dreamed of marrying Hermann's niece. Could any necessity have been more
extravagant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard
hit that he couldn't imagine anybody being able to remain in a state of
indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could
not help coveting so much bodily magnificence. This profound belief was
conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and
playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the
more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights
so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively
flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth
of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features,
the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely
uncovered at the temples. The fact is I had never before seen him
without his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had
taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in
the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking
silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin,
furrowed, worn; I discovered that through the bush of his hair, as
you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense
undergro