"
It was the only sentence in which he ever alluded to her.
I sat down by his side and watched him closely. Mechanically,
methodically, he went on with his dressing. The more he dressed,
the less could I believe it was Hugo. I had expected to find him
close-shaven; so did the police, by their printed notices. Instead
of that, he had shaved his beard and whiskers, but only trimmed his
moustache; trimmed it quite short, so as to reveal the boyish corners
of the mouth--a trick which entirely altered his rugged expression.
But that was not all; what puzzled me most was the eyes--they were not
Hugo's. At first I could not imagine why. By degrees the truth dawned
upon me. His eyebrows were naturally thick and shaggy--great overhanging
growth, interspersed with many of those stiff long hairs to which Darwin
called attention in certain men as surviving traits from a monkey-like
ancestor. In order to disguise himself, Hugo had pulled out all these
coarser hairs, leaving nothing on his brows but the soft and closely
pressed coat of down which underlies the longer bristles in all such
cases. This had wholly altered the expression of the eyes, which no
longer looked out keenly from their cavernous penthouse; but being
deprived of their relief, had acquired a much more ordinary and less
individual aspect.
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