Such men are not rare in the States.
As he knocked the ashes from his cigar, Wolfe caught with a quick
pleasure the contour of the white hand, the blood-glow of a red ring he
wore. His voice, too, and that of Kirby's, touched him like music,--low,
even, with chording cadences. About this man Mitchell hung the
impalpable atmosphere belonging to the thorough-bred gentleman. Wolfe,
scraping away the ashes beside him, was conscious of it, did obeisance
to it with his artist sense, unconscious that he did so.
The rain did not cease. Clarke and the reporter left the mills; the
others, comfortably seated near the furnace, lingered, smoking
and talking in a desultory way. Greek would not have been more
unintelligible to the furnace-tenders, whose presence they soon forgot
entirely. Kirby drew out a newspaper from his pocket and read aloud some
article, which they discussed eagerly. At every sentence, Wolfe listened
more and more like a dumb, hopeless animal, with a duller, more stolid
look creeping over his face, glancing now and then at Mitchell, marking
acutely every smallest sign of refinement, then back to himself, seeing
as in a mirror his filthy body, his more stained soul.
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