y, and sometimes of the
clear azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that masked the soul with a
thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed
it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the
world on some wonderful adventure,--eyes that could brood with the
hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points
of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that could grow
chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften
and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and
compelling, which at the same time fascinate and dominate women till they
surrender in a gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice.

But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, I was
not a preacher, when he sharply demanded:

"What do you do for a living?"

I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I ever
canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could find myself
had sillily stammered, "I--I am a gentleman."

His lip curled in a swift sneer.

"I have worked, I do work," I cried impetuously, as though he were my
judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much aware of
my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.

"For your living?"

There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was
quite beside myself--"rattled," as Furuseth would have termed it, like a
quaking child before a stern school-master.

"Who feeds you?" was his next question.

"I have an income," I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my tongue
the next instant. "All of which, you will pardon my observing, has
nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you about."

But he disregarded my protest.

"Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead
men's legs. You've never had any of your own. You couldn't walk alone
between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals.
Let me see your hand."

His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred, swiftly and
accurately, or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had
stepped two paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it up
for inspection. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened,
without visible effort, till I thought mine would be crushed. It is hard
to maintain one's dignity under such circumstances. I could not squirm
or strugg