things—­the thought kept beating up against him.  There were cheek-bones, oddly high, that made him think involuntarily of the well-advertised Pharaoh, Ramases; a square, deep jaw; and an aquiline nose that gave the final touch of power.  For the power undeniably was there, and while the general effect had grimness in it, there was neither harshness nor any forbidding touch about it.  There was an implacable sternness in the set of lips and jaw, and, most curious of all, the eyelids over the steady eyes of black were level as a ruler.  This level framing made the woman’s stare remarkable beyond description.  Henriot thought of an idol carved in stone, stone hard and black, with eyes that stared across the sand into a world of things non-human, very far away, forgotten of men.  The face was finely ugly.  This strange dark beauty flashed flame about it.

And, as the way ever was with him, Henriot next fell to constructing the possible lives of herself and her companion, though without much success.  Imagination soon stopped dead.  She was not old enough to be Vance’s mother, and assuredly she was not his wife.  His interest was more than merely piqued—­it was puzzled uncommonly.  What was the contrast that made the man seem beside her—­vile?  Whence came, too, the impression that she exercised some strong authority, though never directly exercised, that held him at her mercy?  How did he guess that the man resented it, yet did not dare oppose, and that, apparently acquiescing good-humouredly, his will was deliberately held in abeyance, and that he waited sulkily, biding his time?  There was furtiveness in every gesture and expression.  A hidden motive lurked in him; unworthiness somewhere; he was determined yet ashamed.  He watched her ceaselessly and with such uncanny closeness.

Henriot imagined he divined all this.  He leaped to the guess that his expenses were being paid.  A good deal more was being paid besides.  She was a rich relation, from whom he had expectations; he was serving his seven years, ashamed of his servitude, ever calculating escape—­but, perhaps, no ordinary escape.  A faint shudder ran over him.  He drew in the reins of imagination.

Of course, the probabilities were that he was hopelessly astray—­one usually is on such occasions—­but this time, it so happened, he was singularly right.  Before one thing only his ready invention stopped every time.  This vileness, this notion of unworthiness in Vance, could not be negative merely.  A man with that face was no inactive weakling.  The motive he was at such pains to conceal, betraying its existence by that very fact, moved, surely, towards aggressive action.  Disguised, it never slept.  Vance was sharply on the alert.  He had a plan deep out of sight.  And Henriot remembered how the man’s soft approach along the carpeted corridor had made him start.  He recalled the quasi shock it gave him.  He thought again of the feeling of discomfort he had experienced.