But there was something different about his looks now. He seemed
to have aged, to have grown yellower. Even the whites of his eyes
were yellow.
I thought at first that perhaps it might be the effect of the
light in the centre of the room, a huge affair set in the ceiling
in a sort of inverted hemisphere of glass, concealing and
softening the rays of a powerful incandescent bulb which it
enclosed. It was not the light that gave him the altered
appearance, as I concluded from catching a casual confirmatory
glance of perplexity from Kennedy himself.
"My personal physician says I am suffering from jaundice,"
explained Brixton. Rather than seeming to be offended at our
notice of his condition he seemed to take it as a good evidence of
Kennedy's keenness that he had at once hit on one of the things
that were weighing on Brixton's own mind. "I feel pretty badly,
too. Curse it," he added bitterly, "coming at a time when it is
absolutely necessary that I should have all my strength to carry
through a negotiation that is only a beginning, important not so
much for myself as for the whole world.
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