eBooks Base 2000

And that was beastly
unfair to his lovely wife--wouldn't do, would not do at all, by Gad!
Therefore did he vanish into a diminutive and rather stuffy smoking-room,
under the stairs, unfasten his nankeen waistcoat, unfasten his
collar-stud, doze and finally, a little anxiously, sleep.
Whatever Marshall Wace's diffidence in ordinary intercourse, it
effectually disappeared so soon as he began to declaim or to recite. The
histrionic in him declared itself, rising dominant. Given a character to
impersonate, big swelling words to say, fine sentiments to enunciate, he
changed to the required colour chameleon-like. You forgot--at least the
feminine portion of his audience, almost without exception, forgot--that
his round light-brown eyes stared uncomfortably much; that his nose, thin
at the root and starting with handsome aquiline promise, ended in a
foolish button-tip. Forgot that his lips were straight and compressed,
wanting in generous curves and in tenderness--an actor's mouth,
constructed merely for speech.


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