'Your speaking of nickel,' said the peer, at her elbow, 'reminds me of that extraordinary new discovery--let me see--what is it?'
'America?' suggested the barrister viciously.
'No,' said his lordship, with perfect gravity, 'it's not that. Ah yes, I remember! It's a process for making nitric acid out of air.'
Lady Maud nodded and smiled, as if she knew all about it, but her eyes were again scrutinising Mr. Feist's face. Her neighbour, whose hobby was applied science, at once launched upon a long account of the invention. From time to time the beauty nodded and said that she quite understood, which was totally untrue, but well meant.
'That young man has the head of a criminal,' said the barrister on her other side, speaking very low.
She bent her head very slightly, to show that she had heard, and she continued to listen to the description of the new process. By this time every one was talking again. Mr. Feist was in conversation with Griggs, and showed his profile to the barrister, who quietly studied the retreating forehead and the ill-formed jaw, the latter plainly discernible to a practised eye, in spite of the round cheeks. The barrister was a little mad on the subject of degeneracy, and knew that an unnaturally boyish look in a grown man is one of the signs of it. In the course of a long experience at the bar he had appeared in defence of several 'high-class criminals.' By way of comparing Mr. Feist with a perfectly healthy specimen of humanity, he turned to look at Logotheti beside him. Margaret was talking with the Ambassador, and the Greek was just turning to talk to his neighbour, so that their eyes met, and each waited for the other to speak first.
'Are you a judge of faces?' asked the barrister after a moment.
'Men of business have to be, to some extent,' answered Logotheti.
'So do lawyers. What should you say was the matter with that one?'
It was impossible to doubt that he was speaking of the only abnormal head at the table, and Logotheti looked across the wide table at Mr. Feist for several seconds before he answered.
'Drink,' he said in an undertone, when he had finished his examination.
'May go mad any day, I should think,' observed Logotheti.
'And we shall probably never see him again,' said the Englishman. 'That's the worst of it. One sees such heads occasionally, but one very rarely hears what becomes of them.'