That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the DayDehan, Richard
General
That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Dehan, Richard
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Von Herrnung, at the first sound of the messenger’s voice, had stiffened
to rigidity. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction pointed out
by the big hand in the white glove, and answered:
"Say to the _Herrschaft_ that I come!"
The groom vanished. Von Herrnung jumped out of the yellow Darracq and
went quickly over to the machine that had been indicated, a large,
superbly-finished F.I.A.T. touring-car of the landau-limousine type,
enamelled dark blue with a narrow silver line of finish. The top was
open. A white-capped chauffeur in dark blue and silver livery sat
immovable at the steering-wheel, and three men, only one of whom was
plainly visible to Patrine, occupied the roomy body of the car.
The visible man, sitting in the forward seat with his back to the motor,
his baldness topped, in deference to the weather, with a white felt
Newmarket, was a long-bodied, broad-shouldered personage, certainly over
seventy; clean-shaven, with staring eyes of light grey tinged with
bilious yellow, and skin of a prevailing yellow-grey doughiness, with a
huge wart in the middle of the cheekbone on the side next to Patrine.
His clothes were of yellowish-grey like his eyes and skin, his linen had
a yellow line in it and a huge, crumpled vest of buff nankeen threw into
relief a flaming crimson satin necktie confined within bounds by a flat
jewelled ring. He had the air of an old actor of character parts, or of
a libertine monk who has foregone the cord and cowled habit. Of the two
men sitting facing him little could be seen beyond the peak of a
gold-banded white yachting-cap pulled rather low over a bronzed and
rather aquiline profile with an upward-turned moustache and
slightly-grizzled beard of reddish-brown, and a Homburg straw with a
broad black ribbon and a slouched brim, overshadowing the face of the
man who sat on White Cap’s left hand. An astute and cunning face, his;
long and sallow, with narrow, blinking eyes, a drooping nose, and a
drooping black moustache. With this its owner played constantly,
twisting and pulling it with a delicate white hand that wore a diamond
solitaire. He never looked up, when addressed by either of his
companions, but raised his eyes to the speaker, and pivoted, without
lifting his head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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