No
attempt at breakfast now, no affectation of making a toilet or airing
the room. The atmosphere was hot, to be sure, but it well became such a
Hell. There they sat, in total, in positive forgetfulness of everything
but the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the
room, except Tom Cogit, who could have told you the name of the town
in which they were living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching
every turn with the fell look in their cannibal eyes which showed their
total inability to sympathise with their fellow-beings. All forms of
society had been long forgotten. There was no snuff-box handed
about now, for courtesy, admiration, or a pinch; no affectation of
occasionally making a remark upon any other topic but the all-engrossing
one. Lord Castlefort rested with his arms on the table: a false tooth
had got unhinged. His Lordship, who, at any other time, would have been
most annoyed, coolly put it in his pocket. His cheeks had fallen, and
he looked twenty years older. Lord Dice had torn off his cravat, and
his hair hung down over his callous, bloodless cheeks, straight as silk.
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