CHAPTER VI
Whoever has witnessed Kean’s superb delineation of the ruthless Richard in the scene where, in the illusion of his dying agony, swordless, he continues to lunge and feint, may comprehend the frightful mental overturn which prompted Raikes to sink inertly into a chair near the table, and with foam-flecked lips fall to counting, one by one, the miserable coals in the dull heap before him.
A silly smile overspread his sharp features like an apologetic sunbeam intruding upon a bleak landscape.
A gleam of shrewd transaction shone in his eyes.
The clutch of unwonted acquisition contracted his hands.
Slowly he made partition of the large from the small coals; regretfully he acknowledged the presence of the lesser bits as, with a chuckle of greedy appreciation, he grouped the relative piles.
“Ha, ha! ha, ha! ha, ha!” What a laugh! What a frightful mockery of mirth! “Ha, ha! ha, ha!” and raising both hands above his head he brought them down upon the table with the lax inertia of utter collapse, and fell forward upon his extended arms, his face buried in the squalid heap beneath.
For a dreary hour he lay there without the twitch of a muscle, the well of a sigh.
Like a Cyclop’s eye the button at the bottom of the concave in the wall seemed to stare with wonder upon this unfamiliar Raikes, who could thus permit the radiator to swing open so heedlessly, and the inner recess to expose its golden glut.