Having succeeded in capturing the attention of everyone in the room, Oliver Haddo proceeded to eat these dishes in the order he had named.  Margaret and Burdon watched him with scornful eyes, but Susie, who was not revolted by the vanity which sought to attract notice, looked at him curiously.  He was clearly not old, though his corpulence added to his apparent age.  His features were good, his ears small, and his nose delicately shaped.  He had big teeth, but they were white and even.  His mouth was large, with heavy moist lips.  He had the neck of a bullock.  His dark, curling hair had retreated from the forehead and temples in such a way as to give his clean-shaven face a disconcerting nudity.  The baldness of his crown was vaguely like a tonsure.  He had the look of a very wicked, sensual priest.  Margaret, stealing a glance at him as he ate, on a sudden violently shuddered; he affected her with an uncontrollable dislike.  He lifted his eyes slowly, and she looked away, blushing as though she had been taken in some indiscretion.  These eyes were the most curious thing about him.  They were not large, but an exceedingly pale blue, and they looked at you in a way that was singularly embarrassing.  At first Susie could not discover in what precisely their peculiarity lay, but in a moment she found out:  the eyes of most persons converge when they look at you, but Oliver Haddo’s, naturally or by a habit he had acquired for effect, remained parallel.  It gave the impression that he looked straight through you and saw the wall beyond.  It was uncanny.  But another strange thing about him was the impossibility of telling whether he was serious.  There was a mockery in that queer glance, a sardonic smile upon the mouth, which made you hesitate how to take his outrageous utterances.  It was irritating to be uncertain whether, while you were laughing at him, he was not really enjoying an elaborate joke at your expense.

His presence cast an unusual chill upon the party.  The French members got up and left.  Warren reeled out with O’Brien, whose uncouth sarcasms were no match for Haddo’s bitter gibes.  Raggles put on his coat with the scarlet lining and went out with the tall Jagson, who smarted still under Haddo’s insolence.  The American sculptor paid his bill silently.  When he was at the door, Haddo stopped him.

’You have modelled lions at the Jardin des Plantes, my dear Clayson.  Have you ever hunted them on their native plains?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

Clayson did not know why Haddo asked the question, but he bristled with incipient wrath.

’Then you have not seen the jackal, gnawing at a dead antelope, scamper away in terror when the King of Beasts stalked down to make his meal.’

Clayson slammed the door behind him.  Haddo was left with Margaret, and Arthur Burdon, Dr Porhoet, and Susie.  He smiled quietly.

‘By the way, are you a lion-hunter?’ asked Susie flippantly.