“This is Mr. Carman, of Pleasant Grove Township, Glenn,” he said, bending over, as if no one should hear the name; and then he added, in a husky whisper: “He’s our candidate for county clerk, you know.”
Marley saw something strange, forbidding, in Carman’s face, but he could not tell what it was. It was a red, sunburnt face, closely shaven, with a short mustache burned by the sun; the smile it wore seemed to be fixed and impersonal. Plainly the man had spent his days out of doors, though, it seemed, not healthfully, for his skin was dry and hardened, and his neck thin and wrinkled; he seemed to have known the hard work and the poor nourishment of a farm. Marley wondered what was the matter with Carman’s face. But Powell was drawing them aside.
“Come over here,” he was saying, “where we can be alone.”
He led them to a corner of the little yard; no one was near; they were quite out of the crowd which was pressing to the whitewashed picket fence, attracted by the excitement of the race for which the horses were just then scoring.
“Now, Jake,” Powell began, speaking to Carman, “this is the young man I was talking to you about.”
Carman, still smiling his dry meaningless smile, turned his face half away.
“I reckon,” Powell went on, “that I might be able to do you some good, if I took off my coat.” Powell spoke with a pride in his own influence; Marley had never known him to come so near to boasting before.
Carman was looking away; and Powell, his own eyes narrowed, was watching him closely. Once he winked at Marley, and Marley was mystified; he did not know what play was going on here; he looked from Carman to Powell, and back to Carman again. There was some strange fascination about Carman; Marley felt a slight relief when he discovered that there was something peculiar about Carman’s eyes.
“I haven’t said anything to Marley about the matter, Jake,” Powell said. “Maybe I’d better tell him. Hell! He might not want it—I don’t know.”
Carman turned suddenly; his face had been in the shadow; now it came into the sunlight, and Marley saw that while the pupil of Carman’s right eye contracted suddenly, the pupil of his left eye remained fixed; it was larger than the pupil of the right eye, which had shrunk to a pin-point in the sharp light of the sun. Marley looked closely, the left eye seemed to be swimming in liquid; it almost hurt Marley’s eyes to look at it.