Lady Evelyn — page 164: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“The Red Queen.” — 157 as well as ever. But he was an altered man. A score of years could not have changed him as he changed during that voyage. It was not that his looks differed much. And, I think, little queen, you never saw any one in your life half as handsome as Lord Rory.” Mignonnette shrugged her shoulders, with a very French gesture of impatient disdain. “Handsome! Ah, bah! What have men to do with beauty? Let them be brave, and strong, and clever, and what does a straight nose and a pair of bright eyes mat- ter? I never knew a really handsome man yet who was not a born idiot, or else tyrannical and selfish, and cruel as Nero. Don’t talk to me of handsome men. I’ve seen the animals, and despise them. Your Lord Rory was no better than the rest, I dare say.” ° “Ah, but, begging your pardon, he was, mam’selle. He was neither an idiot nor a tyrant. As I said, he changed out of all knowledge on the passage out. He had grown still as death. He seemed stunned, dazed-like, by the knowledge of his cousin’s. guilt. They had been friends from boyhood, and Lord Rory loved him like a brother. And now he knew that Gerald Desmond had always hated him, and had lifted his hand against his life. “He never told me what passed between them that morning, and—though I’m not a coward, mam’selle, there are some things I dare not do—lI never dared ask Lord Rory any questions about that day, and he never told me. Only when, a fortnight after our landing in Melbourne, I wanted to stay behind the ‘Dancing Dervish,’ and remain with him, he refused point-blank to hear of it. “““Nonsense, Mike, dear old boy!’-he said, with one of his old Icoks, ‘you shall commit no such folly. You shall go to Rio Janeiro in the ship, and I will remain where I am. Don’t be alarmed for me—I shall do very well, and remember the old mother at home depends on you. [ will wait where I am for news from home, and you will find me here, safe and sound, when you come back.’ “Well, mam’selle, the end of the matter was that he had his way, and I went. It was hard to part, but—but there are more hard things in the world than anything else, I think. I went out to Rio, and some other parts, and it was full two years before the ‘Dancing Dervish’ got back to pesabonine again. ate bs Sa hate | comicboo ‘S. co . ax 3 .