The Slave of the Lamp | Page 6

of a cheap cigar. One would almost
have said that he recognised the step at a considerable distance. Young
people are in the habit of considering that when one gets old and stout
one loses in intelligence; but this is not always the case. One is apt to
expect little from a fat man; but that is often a mistake. Mr. Jacquetot

weighed seventeen stone, but he was eminently intelligent. He had
recognised the footstep while it was yet seventy mètres away.
In a few moments a gentleman of middle height paused in front of the
shop, noted that it was a tobacconist's, and entered, carrying an
unstamped letter with some ostentation. It must, by the way, be
remembered that in France postage-stamps are to be bought at all
tobacconists'.
The new-comer's actions were characterised by a certain carelessness,
as if he were going through a formula--perfunctorily--without admitting
its necessity.
He nodded to Mr. Jacquetot, and rather a pleasant smile flickered for a
moment across his face. He was a singularly well-made man, of
medium height, with straight, square shoulders and small limbs. He
wore spectacles, and as he looked at one straight in the face there was a
singular contraction of the eyes which hardly amounted to a
cast--moreover, it was momentary. It was precisely the look of a hawk
when its hood is suddenly removed in full daylight. This resemblance
was furthered by the fact that the man's profile was birdlike. He was
clean-shaven, and there was in his sleek head and determined little face
that smooth, compact self-complacency which is to be noted in the
head of a hawk.
The face was small, like that of a Greek bust, but in expression it
suggested a yet older people. There was that mystic depth of expression
which comes from ancient Egypt. No one feature was obtrusive--all
were chiselled with equal delicacy; and yet there was only one point of
real beauty in the entire countenance. The mouth was perfect. But the
man with a perfect mouth is usually one whom it will be found
expedient to avoid. Without a certain allowance of sensuality no man is
genial--without a little weakness there is no kind heart. This
Frenchman's mouth was not, however, obtrusively faultless. It was
perfect in its design, but, somehow, many people failed to take note of
the fact. It is so with the "many," one finds. The human world is so
blind that at times it would be almost excusable to harbour the
suspicion that animals see more. There may be something in that

instinct by which dogs, horses, and cats distinguish between friends and
foes, detect sympathy, discover antipathy. It is possible that they see
things in the human face to which our eyes are blinded--intentionally
and mercifully blinded. If some of us were a little more observant, a
few of the human combinations which we bring about might perhaps be
less egregiously mistaken.
It was probably the form of the lips that lent pleasantness to the smile
with which Mr. Jacquetot was greeted, rather than the expression of the
velvety eyes, which had in reality no power of smiling at all. They were
sad eyes, like those of the women one sees on the banks of the Upper
Nile, which never alter in expression--eyes that do not seem to be busy
with this life at all, but fully occupied with something else: something
beyond to-morrow or behind yesterday.
"Not yet arrived?" inquired the new-comer in a voice of some
distinction. It was a full, rich voice, and the French it spoke was not the
French of Mr. Jacquetot, nor, indeed, of the Rue St. Gingolphe. It was
the language one sometimes hears in an old _château_ lost in the depths
of the country--the vast unexplored rural districts of France--where the
bearers of dangerously historical names live out their lives with a
singular suppression and patience. They are either biding their time or
else they are content with the past and the part played by their ancestors
therein. For there is an old French and a new. In Paris the new is
spoken--the very newest. Were it anything but French it would be
intolerably vulgar; as it is, it is merely neat and intensely expressive.
"Not yet arrived, sir," said the tobacconist, and then he seemed to
recollect himself, for he repeated:
"Not yet arrived," without the respectful addition which had slipped out
by accident.
The new arrival took out his watch--a small one of beautiful
workmanship, the watch of a lady--and consulted it. His movements
were compact and rapid. He would have made a splendid light-weight
boxer.

"That," he said shortly, "is the way they fail. They do not understand
the necessity of exactitude. The people--see you, Mr. Jacquetot, they
fail because they have no exactitude."
"But