As it was, the brief colloquy on the business interests
that had brought him hither was almost concluded before the problem of
his host's manner began to intrude on Bayne's consciousness. Briscoe's
broad, florid, genial countenance expressed an unaccountable disquietude;
a flush had mounted to his forehead, which was elongated by his premature
baldness; he was pulling nervously at his long dark mustache, which
matched in tint the silky fringe of hair encircling his polished crown;
his eyes, round and brown, and glossy as a chestnut, wandered
inattentively. He did not contend on small points of feasibility,
according to his wont--for he was of an argumentative habit of mind--in
fact, his acquiescence in every detail proposed was so complete and so
unexpected that Bayne, with half his urgency unsaid, came to the end of
his proposition with as precipitate an effect as if he had stumbled upon
it in the dark.
"Well, that's agreed, is it? Easily settled! I really need not have
come--though"--with a complaisant after-thought--"it is a pleasure to
look in on you in your woodland haunts.
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