rare character, so long as by rare you don't mean good. It's one
of the dullest stupidities of the present day, my dear fellow, to
dote on a man simply because he's different from the rest of us.
Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to
meet wolves in the thickets than angels. From what I can gather
in just these few pages this Sabathier appears to have been an
amorous, adventurous, emotional Frenchman, who went to the dogs
as easily and as rapidly as his own nature and his period
allowed. And I should say, Lawford, that he made precious bad
reading for a poor old troubled hermit like yourself at the
present moment.'

'There's a portrait of him a few pages back.'

Mr Bethany, with some little impatience, turned back to the
engraving. '"Nicholas de Sabathier,"'s he muttered. '"De,"
indeed!' He poked in at the foxy print with narrowed eyes. 'I
don't deny it's a striking, even perhaps, a rather taking face. I
don't deny it.' He gazed on with an even more acute
concentration, and looked up sharply. 'Look here, Lawford, what
in the name of wonder--what trick are you playing on me now?'

'Trick?' said Lawford; and the world fell with the tiniest plash
in the silence, like a vivid little float upon the surface of a
shadowy pool.

The old face flushed. 'What conceivable bearing, I say, has this
dead and gone old roue on us now?'

'You don't think, then, you see any resemblance--ANY resemblance