"Surely, surely!"
"You are fresh for the encounter to-night?"
"Pleasantly put! Is the query meant for the player or his purse?"
"Good, very good! Why, truly, there is no necessary affinity between
them."
"And yet the one without the other would scarcely be able to
commend himself to so excellent an artist as Mr. Latour Cleveland.
Clifford, let me introduce you to my ENEMY; Mr. Cleveland, my
FRIEND."
In this manner was I introduced. Thus was I made acquainted
with the particular individual whom it was the meditated purpose
of Kingsley to expose. But, though thus marked in the language of
his introduction, there was nothing in the tone or manner of my
companion, at all calculated to alarm the suspicions of the other.
On the contrary, there was a sort of reckless joviality in the
air of ABANDON, with which he presented me and spoke. A natural
curiosity moved me to examine Cleveland more closely. He was what
we should call, in common speech, a very elegant young man. He was
probably thirty or thirty-five years of age, tall, graceful, rather
slenderish, and of particular nicety in his dress. All his clothes
were disposed with the happiest precision. White kid-gloves covered
his taper fingers. Withdrawn, a rich diamond blazed upon one hand,
while a seal-ring, of official dimensions, with characters cut in
lava, decorated the other. His movements betrayed the same nice method
which distinguished the arrangement of his dress. His evolutions
might all have been performed by trumpet signal, and to the sound
of measured music. He was evidently one of those persons whose
feelings are too little earnest, ever to affect their policy; too
little warm ever to disparage the rigor of their customary play;
one of those cold, nice men, who, without having a single passion
at work to produce one condition of feeling higher than another, are
yet the very ideals of the most narrow and concentrated selfishness.
His face was thin, pale, and intelligent. His lips were thick,
however--the eyes bright, like those of a snake, but side-looking,
never direct, never upward, and always with a smiling shyness in
their glance, in which a suspicious mind like my own would always
find sufficient occasion for distrust.
Mr. Cleveland bestowed a single keen glance upon me while going
through the ordeal of introduction. But his scrutiny labored under
one disadvantage. His eyes did not encounter mine! One loses a great
deal, if his object be the study of tuman nature, if he fails in
this respect.
"Much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Clifford; I trust,
however, you will find me no worse enemy than your friend has done."
"If he find YOU no worse, he will find himself no better. He will
pay for his enmity, whatever its degree, as I have done, ancl be
wiser, by reason of his losses."