The tall stranger bowed and
smiled again:
"Just so," he said. "What do you think of it?"
"It is beautiful!"
Again the reply came from every mouth simultaneously, and again if the
speakers could have been listeners they would have wondered not only
at their earnestness, but at their words, for why should they
instantly and unanimously pronounce that beautiful which they had not
even seen? But every man knew he had seen it, for instinctively their
minds reverted to the card and recognized in it the metal referred
to. The mesmeric spell seemed once more to fall upon the assemblage,
for the financiers noticed nothing remarkable in the next act of the
stranger, which was to take a chair, uninvited, at the table, and the
moment he sat down he became the presiding officer as naturally as if
he had just been elected to that post. They all waited for him to
speak, and when he opened his mouth they listened with breathless
attention.
His words were of the best English, but there was some peculiarity,
which they had already noticed, either in his voice or his manner of
enunciation, which struck all of the listeners as denoting a
foreigner.
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