“Beastly hole!” said the first.
He recognised the voice for that of a man of about his own age, who had lost one of his legs, and wore a wooden one.
“When I was coming out lăst year with my friend, Lord Cardrew,” said the other man, “we—er—hadn’t even time to go up the—er—water tower. Such a beautiful view from it; you must come with me and see it.”
The speaker was an old fellow of sixty, travelling for his health; a man with a tanned face, clean-shaven, but for the white moustache running in a straight close-clipped line above a lip which displayed his rather yellow upper teeth. A retired diplomat, a dilettante in art, tall, dapper, a stickler for ceremony and the aristocracy, of which he was not a member, he habitually wore a yachting cap, and pronounced the word ghastly—găstly.
Giles had heard his private history, and knew him for a man who had suffered much at the hands of his wife and children, and who lived perpetually in the fear of death from a bad heart.
“À propos of my friend, Lord Cardrew, there is a man on board very like him; his name is—er—Legard. I wonder if he is one of the—Legards. I would ask him, but he—er—never seems to speak to anybody.”
The other voice said—
“Tall, rather dark chap, I know—seems very down in the mouth—here, waiter, bring some ice.”
Giles shifted uneasily in his seat.
The old fellow went on—