IN THE SHADOW
upon his sour face, far less a smile. His underlings would have fled had they heard him laugh.
Sir Henry looked annoyed; Virginia flushed. Leyden smiled, said a few words in Gaelic; Guijon's features writhed; the eyes of Leyden twinkled, he delivered himself of a volley of guttural words, and Virginia, who had often heard Guijon muttering to himself in his Bigouden Breton as he worked, was amazed, for the quaint inflections of the odd character were all present; one would have sworn that it was the voice of Guijon talking, except that the tones were less explosive. Leyden said a few more words in the same tongue; Guijon answered, his face contorted into strange shapes; Leyden loosed a broadside; Guijon laughed outright. Sir Henry looked alarmed and Virginia was almost panic stricken, but Leyden clapped the griffin on the shoulder and led the way to the orchid.
It was in flower, wonderfully so, with a pale light shimmering up from its livid depths through the raw-tinted, translucent corollary cup; diaphanous as the pinna of a girl's ear, flesh-tinted, exotic, poisonous, passionate, it claimed the eye. Leyden bent over it; Virginia did the same and drew back repelled at its stagnant, fetid breath. Insects were struggling in its saliva; it was a vampire plant.
Leyden straightened his back and turned to the gardener, this time speaking in English. "You are right, my friend; it is the Phælenopsis Guijonis; I sent the bulb from the Philippines where I bought it from Arthur Brown, the marine painter. He told me that he found it in Basilan, and being unable to identify it had decided that it was a new variety and had named it after himself;
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