How did she know these things about this
man, and why had she only now accidentally spoken of them? _He_ would
have done so. All this passed so vaguely through his unreflective mind,
that he was unable to retain any decided impression, but the
far-reaching one that his lodger had obtained some occult influence
over her through the exhibition of his baleful skill in the horsehair
speculation. "Them tricks is likely to take a young girl's fancy. I
must look arter her," he said to himself softly.
A slow regular step in the gangway interrupted his paternal
reflections. Hastily buttoning across his chest the pea-jacket which he
usually wore at home as a single concession to his nautical
surroundings, he drew himself up with something of the assumption of a
shipmaster, despite certain bucolic suggestions of his boots and legs.
The footsteps approached nearer, and a tall figure suddenly stood in
the doorway.
It was a figure so extraordinary that even in the strange masquerade of
that early civilization it was remarkable; a figure with whom father
and daughter were already familiar without abatement of wonder--the
figure of a rejuvenated old man, padded, powdered, dyed, and painted to
the verge of caricature, but without a single suggestion of
ludicrousness or humor.
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