“Indeed! Why?”
“Because he must have looked at her!”
“Oh! Is it not true that he has the evil eye?”
“You exaggerate a little,” said Mademoiselle Potin, who no doubt had been terrified by some silent threat of Countess Elfride. “He has the fixed look of people who do not see well.”
“Just so,” said Cristiano; “death is blind. But who gave the baron the surname of the Snow Man? It suits him: he is the living embodiment of a Spitzbergen winter. He has given me a chill.”
“And did you notice his curious habit?” said Margaret.
“He put his hand to his forehead as if to wipe off the perspiration; do you mean that?”
“Exactly.”
“The Snow Man wants, perhaps, to make us believe that he is perspiring; but the simple truth is that he is thawing.”
“You see that I had good cause to be afraid of him. And his black diamond—did you notice that?”