It was the brown woolen muffler and gray eyes which most disturbed him. Gray eyes, and brown muffler, on a ship’s deck, in sunlight, at sea — this meant one thing to him: Cynthia. Cynthia, on the Silurian, had worn such a muffler: throwing it languidly over one shoulder and around her throat as she started forward, with that odd look of distance and somber detachment in her gray eyes, sea-gazing and imperious. Good God, what an absurd pang the mere visual thought of her still gave him after a year! A disgraceful weakness. He sank into the corner seat nearest the door of the smoking room, dropping his book on the table. The pianist of the ship orchestra sat next to him, a small golden harp embroidered on the sleeve of his soiled and stained blue coat. He was a pale, ill-shaven young man, with reddish hair slicked back from his clammy forehead and watery blue eyes behind thick spectacles. His mouth was small, curled and petulant, and his voice had a complaining quality. He was leaning forward on the table, talking to an extraordinary-looking young woman whom Demarest had not noticed before.
“You’re Welsh aren’t you?”
The young woman looked at him sidelong in a manner intended to be vampirine. Her green eyes were by nature narrow and gleaming under long black lashes, and she deliberately over exaggerated this effect. An extraordinarily lascivious face, thought Demarest — the eyes cunning and treacherous, and the mouth, which might have been beautiful had it been more moderate, extravagantly red and rich and extravagantly and cruelly curved downward at the corners. A vampire, a serpent, a lamia, a carrion flower — yes, a mouth like a carrion flower, and giving out poisonous juices; for as she laughed, Demarest noticed that the lower lip, which was undershot, was wet with saliva. She lifted her strange face to laugh, giving only two short musical sounds, then lowered her face again and wiped her mouth with a crumpled handkerchief.
“Welsh? Why do you think I’m Welsh?… You ought to be Welsh, with a harp on your sleeve!”