"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 290 - Death has Grey Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

into a sentimental smile.
His first thought had been of piercing eyes, cold and grey; then those
eyes of brown, warm, melancholy, but understanding. Whose they were, what they
signified, had become a blank to Dick Whitlock. It was as if the grey eyes had
so commanded when Dick received their last icy stare, but at intervals along
the line there had been rifts, pleasant interludes where brown eyes had broken
the stern rigor of a strange psychological misadventure.
All that was fantasy and here was reality - or was it?
In coming back to scenes and faces that he knew, Dick felt that he had
returned to another world other than his own. This was New York; but the
surroundings were tinsel, the people putty. They'd thought they lived, but
they
hadn't; in fact they never would until they experienced that endless drift in
a
descending parachute with the searchlights working like pointers to pick out
something on a mammoth blackboard formed by the entire sky, something which
happened to be you.
It made you big and little, all at once, with the ack-acks whistling a
hail that sizzled upward through the chute. You lived everything all over at a
time like that, everything plus a lot you'd never lived.
Maybe Claire took Dick's final smile for one of self-sufficiency; at any
rate, she didn't like it. Her gaze roved to Jerry, who made a quick warning
gesture with his cigarette. So Claire threw a vacuous smile around the table,
which was her way of asking an invitation to dance. A sleek male member of the
party took the bait and Dick watched Claire and her party get swallowed by the
throng that milled the dance floor.
Jerry said: "Let's get away for a few minutes, Dick."
They went to the Moonbeam Bar, just off the Starview Roof. Jerry ordered
a
couple of drinks; then tilted his sharp face and stated in so many words:
"You've changed a lot, Dick."
Dick gave a short, gruff laugh that befitted the tight set of his broad
jaw. His eyes, staring steadily from beneath his blocky brow, looked as black
as their surrounding hollows. If Dick had any claim to being handsome it was
in
a rugged way. Perhaps his toughening years of warfare had obliterated the
lighter moods and manners that he once possessed.
That could be what Jerry meant.
 "Maybe other people have changed," expressed Dick. "They certainly don't
look the same to me."
"You mean Claire for one?"
"Yes, Claire."
"I haven't noticed it, Dick."
"You've changed too, Jerry."
That brought a mild smile from Jerry. Toying with his drink, he showed a
sudden flash of firmness that matched Dick's own.
"It sounds like the old gag, Dick," said Jerry. "Everybody being out of
step except one man."
"Why not?" returned Dick. "It can happen, you know."
"Did it happen with you?"