It was the portrait of a thin, fine, intellectual face,
which in its every line suggested an intense, and almost dreadful
curiosity. The brows were high, yet narrow,--the eyes clear and
cold, and pitiless in their straight regard,--the lips thin and
compressed,--the nose delicate, with thin open nostrils, like those
of a trained sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. It was a three-
quarter-length picture, showing the hand of the man slightly raised,
and holding a surgeon's knife,--a wonderful hand, rather small, with
fingers that are generally termed "artistic"--and a firm wrist,
which Angela had worked at patiently, carefully delineating the
practised muscles employed and developed in the vivisectiomst's
ghastly business.
Aubrey Leigh stood contemplating it intently.
"I think it is really the finest of all the types," he said
presently, "One can grasp that man's character so thoroughly! There
is no pity in him,--no sentiment--there is merely an insatiable
avidity to break open the great treasure-house of Life by fair means
or foul! It is very terrible--but very powerful."
"I know the man," said Abbe Vergniaud, "Did he sit to you
willingly?"
"Very willingly indeed!" replied Angela, "He was quite amused when I
told him frankly that I wanted him as a type of educated and refined
cruelty.
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