His marks and
wrinkles were innumerable. From this strange face, eyes, stranger still,
of the softest brown--eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk in
their orbits--looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took
your attention captive at their will. Add to this a quantity of thick
closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of Nature, had lost its
colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner. Over the
top of his head it was still of the deep black which was its natural
colour. Round the sides of his head--without the slightest gradation
of grey to break the force of the extraordinary contrast--it had turned
completely white. The line between the two colours preserved no sort
of regularity. At one place, the white hair ran up into the black; at
another, the black hair ran down into the white. I looked at the man
with a curiosity which, I am ashamed to say, I found it quite impossible
to control. His soft brown eyes looked back at me gently; and he met
my involuntary rudeness in staring at him, with an apology which I was
conscious that I had not deserved.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I had no idea that Mr. Betteredge was
engaged.
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