Granillo (pause). Go on. I’m all right. Put it on. I’m better now.
The little lamp is lit. Brandon is tall, finely and athletically built, and blonde. He is quietly and expensively dressed, with a double-breasted waistcoat, which shows his sturdiness off to the best advantage, and perfectly creased trousers, not turned up at the end, and about nineteen inches in width. His hands are large, and his build is that of the boxer—not the football player or the runner. He has clear blue eyes, a fine mouth and nose, and a rich, competent and really easy voice. He is plainly very well off, and he seems to have used his money in making a fine specimen of himself instead of running to seed. He is almost paternal with everyone he addresses, and this seems to arise from an instinctive knowledge of his own good health, good looks, success and natural calm, as opposed to the harassed frailty of the ordinary human being. This, however, brings him at moments to an air of vague priggishness and self-approbation, and is the one reason why you cannot altogether like him.
Granillo is slim, not so tall as Brandon, expensively and rather ornately dressed in a dark blue suit. He wears a diamond ring. He is dark. A Spaniard. He is enormously courteous—something between a dancing-master and a stage villain. He speaks English perfectly. To those who know him fairly well, and are not subject to Anglo-Saxon prejudices, he seems a thoroughly good sort.
Brandon, seated in armchair, looks into the light of the lamp, employing himself by fiddling with the shade. Granillo walks over to mirror over mantelpiece, looks at himself and adjusts his collar. He takes a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece. Meanwhile Brandon has also risen and come over. He does exactly the same, and is just in time to have his cigarette lit from Granillo’s match. He puts his arm round Granillo as he does this.
[ 15 ]
