[The Octopus by Frank Norris]@TWC D-Link bookThe Octopus CHAPTER III 69/70
Once inside, Harran went to remonstrate with Osterman, who was still up.
Magnus had again retired. The house had fallen quiet again. As Presley crossed the dining-room on the way to his own apartment in the second story of the house, he paused for a moment, looking about him.
In the dull light of the lowered lamps, the redwood panelling of the room showed a dark crimson as though stained with blood.
On the massive slab of the dining table the half-emptied glasses and bottles stood about in the confusion in which they had been left, reflecting themselves deep into the polished wood; the glass doors of the case of stuffed birds was a subdued shimmer; the many-coloured Navajo blanket over the couch seemed a mere patch of brown. Around the table the chairs in which the men had sat throughout the evening still ranged themselves in a semi-circle, vaguely suggestive of the conference of the past few hours, with all its possibilities of good and evil, its significance of a future big with portent.
The room was still.
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