The Eyes of the World | Page 8

assist you to a carriage,
madam?"
At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am
better now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car."
She indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.
"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
walked with her toward the car.
"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
sir, for your gentle courtesy."
He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.
The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things
to more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she
was being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second
thought.
When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot
platform, the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking
about, questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his
eyes fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.
Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were
so rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought
was to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His

long, thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness.
From under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes
peered with a curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic,
and wholly cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight,
much-used brier pipe. At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to
escape the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been
watching the woman with the disfigured face, with more than casual
interest. He turned, now, upon the young man who had so kindly given
her assistance.
In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.
Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon
reaching the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.
The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
Setter at his feet.
Chapter III
The Famous Conrad Lagrange

When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room,
where he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the
evening meal.
Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who
had directed him to the hotel.
That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and
the Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the
clerk's counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his

skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to
present the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.
In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served
to him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that
there was nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the
fact that there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so
good, he would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's
secret amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal
of the really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.
Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda;
intent upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome
days on the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his
cigar just nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of
his royal blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long
silky ears, confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into
the man's face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.
"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
sleek