In the shadow, on the darker parts of the wall, he saw the gleam of three or four pictures that looked fantastic and surprising. They seemed to represent naked figures.
Felix stood there, with his head a little bent and his eyes fixed upon his visitor, smiling intensely, pulling his mustache.
Mr. Brand felt vaguely uneasy. "It is very delicate--what I want to say," Felix began. "But I have been thinking of it for some time."
"Please to say it as quickly as possible," said Mr. Brand.
"It 's because you are a clergyman, you know," Felix went on.
"I don't think I should venture to say it to a common man."
Mr. Brand was silent a moment. "If it is a question of yielding to a weakness, of resenting an injury, I am afraid I am a very common man."
"My dearest friend," cried Felix, "this is not an injury; it 's a benefit--a great service! You will like it extremely.
Only it 's so delicate!" And, in the dim light, he continued to smile intensely. "You know I take a great interest in my cousins--in Charlotte and Gertrude Wentworth. That 's very evident from my having traveled some five thousand miles to see them."
Mr. Brand said nothing and Felix proceeded. "Coming into their society as a perfect stranger I received of course a great many new impressions, and my impressions had a great freshness, a great keenness.
Do you know what I mean?"
"I am not sure that I do; but I should like you to continue."
"I think my impressions have always a good deal of freshness," said Mr. Brand's entertainer; "but on this occasion it was perhaps particularly natural that--coming in, as I say, from outside--