I see
you have siros in the bar. Hang me if I ain't getting dry, conversing
like this with you. Come, Mr. Schomberg, be hospitable, as the governor
says."
Schomberg rose and walked with dignity to the counter. His footsteps
echoed loudly on the floor of polished boards. He took down a bottle,
labelled "Sirop de Groseille." The little sounds he made, the clink of
glass, the gurgling of the liquid, the pop of the soda-water cork had
a preternatural sharpness. He came back carrying a pink and glistening
tumbler. Mr. Ricardo had followed his movements with oblique, coyly
expectant yellow eyes, like a cat watching the preparation of a saucer
of milk, and the satisfied sound after he had drunk might have been a
slightly modified form of purring, very soft and deep in his throat. It
affected Schomberg unpleasantly as another example of something inhuman
in those men wherein lay the difficulty of dealing with them. A
spectre, a cat, an ape--there was a pretty association for a mere man to
remonstrate with, he reflected with an inward shudder; for Schomberg had
been overpowered, as it were, by his imagination, and his reason could
not react against that fanciful view of his guests. And it was not only
their appearance. The morals of Mr. Ricardo seemed to him to be pretty
much the morals of a cat. Too much. What sort of argument could a mere
man offer to a .
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