oyish youth of twenty-three, dark-eyed, somewhat
lean of feature, and tinted with that olive smoothness of skin
inherited from the Renaults through my great-grandfather--a face which
in repose was a trifle worn, not handsome, but clearly cut, though not
otherwise remarkable. It was, I believed, neither an evil nor a sullen
brooding face, nor yet a face in which virtue molds each pleasing
feature so that its goodness is patent to the world.

Dennis having ended his ministrations, I pinned a brilliant at my
throat--a gift from Lady Coleville--and shook over it the cobweb lace
so it should sparkle like a star through a thin cloud. Then passing my
small sword through the embroidered slashing of my coat, and choosing a
handkerchief discreetly perfumed, I regarded myself at ease, thinking
of Elsin Grey.

In the light of later customs and fashions I fear that I was something
of a fop, though I carried neither spy-glass nor the two watches sacred
to all fops. But if I loved dress, so did his Excellency, and John
Hancock, not to name a thousand better men than I; and while I confess
that I did and do dearly love to cut a respectable figure, frippery for
its own sake was not among my vices; but I hold him a hind who, if he
can afford it, dresses not to please others and do justice to the
figure that a generous Creator has so patiently fashioned. "To please
others!" sang my French blood within me; "to please myself!" echoed my
English blood--and so, betwixt the sanguine tides, I was minded to
please in one way or another, nor thought it a desire unworthy. One
thing did distress me: what with sending all my salary to the prisons,
I had no money left to bet as gentlemen bet, nor to back a well-heeled
bird, nor to color my fancy for a horse. As for a mistress, or for
those fugitive affairs of the heart which English fashion
countenanced--nay, on which fashion insisted--I had no part in them,
and brooked much banter from the gay world in consequence. It was not
merely lack of money, nor yet a certain fastidiousness implanted, nor
yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden,
for my Renault blood was hot enough, God wot! It was, I think, all of
these reasons that kept me untainted, and another, the vague idea of a
woman, somewhere in the world, who should be worth an unsullied
love--worth far more than the best I might bring to her one day. And so
my pride refused to place me in debt to a woman whom I had nev