Captains of Souls
BOOK THE FIRST
I
Beryl Merville wrote:
"Dear Ronnie: We are back from Italy, arriving this afternoon. Daddy thought you would be there to meet us, and I was so disappointed to find nobody but Mr. Steppe. Oh, yes! I know that he is a most important person, and his importance was supported by his new car; such an impressive treasure, with a collapsible writing-table and cigar-lighter and library—actually a library in a cunning little locker under one of the seats. I just glanced at them.
I am a little afraid of Mr. Steppe, yet he was kindness itself, and that bull voice of his, bellowing orders to porters and chauffeur and railway policemen was comforting in a way. Daddy is a little plaintive on such occasions.
I thought he was looking unusually striking—Steppe I mean. People certainly do look at him, with his black, pointed beard and his bristling, black eyebrows. You like him, don't you? Perhaps I should too, only—he is very magnetic; a commanding person, he frightens me, I repeat. And I have met another man, I don't think you know him, he said he had never met you. Daddy knows him rather well, and so does Mr. Steppe. Such a queer man, Ronnie!