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a worn and sleepless man, lined and drawn, yellow in the whites of the
eyes, a little weakened about the mouth. Here, indeed, were the
red-brown eyes, the black hair, the distinctive aquiline profile of the
great demagogue, but here was also something else that smote any
premeditated scorn and rhetoric aside. This man was suffering; he was
suffering acutely; he was under enormous stress. From the beginning he
had an air of impersonating himself. Presently, with a single gesture,
the slightest movement, he revealed to Redwood that he was keeping
himself up with drugs. He moved a thumb to his waistcoat pocket, and
then, after a few sentences more, threw concealment aside, and slipped
the little tabloid to his lips.
Moreover, in spite of the stresses upon him, in spite of the fact that
he was in the wrong, and Redwood's junior by a dozen years, that strange
quality in him, the something--personal magnetism one may call it for
want of a better name--that had won his way for him to this eminence of
disaster was with him still. On that also Redwood had failed to reckon.
From the first, so far as the course and conduct of their speech went,
Caterham prevailed over Redwood. All the quality of the first phase of
their meeting was determined by him, all the tone and procedure were
his. That happened as if it was a matter of course. All Redwood's
expectations vanished at his presence. He shook hands before Redwood
remembered that he meant to parry that familiarity; he pitched the note
of their conference from the outset, sure and clear, as a search for
expedients under a common catastrophe.
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