CHAPTER II.
EVASIO MON There are some people whose presence in a room seems to establish a mental centre of gravity round which other minds hover uneasily, conscious of the dead weight of that attraction.
"I have known Evasio all my life," the Count de Sarrion once said to his son.

"I have stood at the edge of that pit and looked in.

I do not know to this day whether there is gold at the bottom or mud.

I have never quarreled with him, and, therefore, we have never made it up." Which, perhaps, was as good a description of Evasio Mon as any man had given.

He had never quarreled with any one.